My Mennonite Neighbors

It's rare I've seen an Amish buggy going 5 mph.

Our neighbors in PA, actually, a very nice looking and I would say above average in a lot of ways family, had standardbred horses for their buggies. They kept their harness and buggies the way a collector keeps an old '57 Chevy, cleaning, polishing,... they were sharp looking.

They told me more than once that it was hard to hold those horses back. On some of the flatter stretches, those horses wanted to go, sometimes pushing over 30mph.

A few of the Amish around there would get a thoroughbred but most seemed to prefer the sturdier build of the standardbred horses. At least they did then... Its been a while.

Farmboy - I think its nicer to cut the hay in a hour and have the rest of the day to go fishing, enjoy nature or what else you want to do - and I don't think the guy cutting hay with a horse is out there taking a joy ride - he got to get the hay baled before it rains and he's got a hundred other things to do -and Bellyman they may do more than 5 mph on a straight away but I've seem them just about crawling up a hill -

They are Amish, the Mennonites are an older sect, but the Amish are more strict. Mennonites own vehicles and tractors and do not use horses in their farming.....usually. I too am in the middle of a large Amish population and they work for me on my farm and in my bakery. Hard working, industrious and very cordial. The kids a great and super polite and shy. Us Englischers could learn a lot from them!

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I don't know...the OP seems to think the neighbors are pretty sure they are Mennonite. You would think they would know what religion they are.

Sorry, but this is wrong. I belong to a Menno church and I know Old Order Menno's who farm with horses. It depends on the church you belong to.
Our churches are self governing. There are so many ones that we don't always know who is who. You usually Know which is which in your area, but if I go up to say, Lancaster County, Pa which has 33 flavors of plain people, I might see some plain girls riding bikes and say, 'they're OO Menno's"
Only to be corrected by someone from there who actually did tell me, "No, those are Joe Wengers."

The bad thing about plain churches is that they tend to split over the man made rules. That is not good. But that is why there are so many different ones.

Grew up around both groups and all I can say...is there are good and bad in any group of people..

As I said in my post, "usually"....maybe you missed that point.

And I also said that there is a huge population of Amish around me along with Mennonites, and my familiarity is based on living among them and transporting them and befriending them.

And even they will tell you, there are good and bad among the Amish - in fact, they have a translation for "poor Amish trash" just like we call some folks "poor white trash."

__________________
Be a fountain, not a drain!

^()^
http://tubbsfarmstead.com/

Is their really a Amish mafia?

you can always tell amish trash, they will have a old work horse up on blocks in the front yard!

No Amish Mafia in my locale............they laugh about that show and we have heard lots of stories....

__________________
Be a fountain, not a drain!

^()^
http://tubbsfarmstead.com/

There are Menno and Amish near my home place in Illinois, so I try to keep up with issues with them, read this yesterday and cried.

http://www.vice.com/read/the-ghost-r...?Contentpage=1

Well could be ... there is organized crime .... mostly timber thieves and wannabe barn builders. To survive they keep changing the name on their business cards and often need to move into new territories where they are less known.

.... they tend to ruin the good reputation of the Amish making it difficult for the honest ones to conduct business with the English.

We have a small settlement here known to be those who got booted out of the church .... so they get together and form their own church.

Some pics of the carnage... http://www.mapministry.org/news-and-...uggy-accidents

Brighton - yes things like that are horrible - but there are things just as bad and a lot worse going on all over this world - often times little children are the victims - there are a lot of evil people on the earth - evil ranging from the lowest form of human behavior to cheating and stealing - and it seems things are getting worse all the time - sometimes I wonder why God doesn't just distroy the whole place -

Very interesting. We had a go-round with a barn building "company" last summer who claimed to be ex-Amish (they have a new church now) and they all had Amish/Menno names. They were pretty shady but we won in the end.