Faux Farmer Road Trip
I am partial to farms in Lancaster County and for the most part they are Amish farms. The non- Amish farmers are affectionately referred to as tractor farmers by the Amish and that pretty much distinguishes them from each other on a basic farming level. You either farm with a tractor or you farm with animals and there is too isn’t much in between. Now, as you can see in the photo, this tractor has steel wheels and was probably used by an Amish farmer ( a long time ago judging by the rust), but never in the fields. It can be used to power the machine that cuts and blows silage into the silo, but again Old Order Amish farmers can not use a tractor in the fields. He might have a cell phone in his back pocket but never a tractor in the field, got that? OK so moving on. I am aware that there are farms in other areas and so in all fairness to them when I was coming back from New York today I stopped and took some photos of farms in Clinton, NJ. So here is a little picture story about what I saw. I mean, what kind of Faux Farmer would I be if I didn’t check out all different kinds of farms. Just because I am a pretend farmer doesn’t mean I can’t pretend to be a well rounded faux farmer!
In NJ they seem to be more partial to red barns whereas the Amish tend to stick with white for the most part, though not always.
In NJ I did not see any white barns, just for your information. I got no answer for that.
Amish farmers tend go for the dairy cows and they have to be brought in for milking. They are fed in the barn each night and each morning and so you don’t usually see cattle being fed hay out in the fields in the Amish community like I saw here in NJ.
Now this might seems a little weird but you don’t generally see stone walls around Amish farms. I guess it is because most of the land is very flat. They are big on fences, especially those white vinyl fences. I don’t have an answer about the stone walls. Maybe the land just wasn’t rocky and didn’t yield a lot of stones that they needed do something with. Just an observation.
Little falling down sheds are universal among all farms. Having said that, the Amsih community in Lancaster is very big in making new sheds and in fact probably manufacturers more sheds than anyone else on the East Coast. But again, old sheds are almost a farm requisite.
And last of all there are the barn cats. They are universal among barns and do not discriminate between NJ and Pennsylvania, Amish or English. It is pretty basic with them, they want food.
So that is all the time I had to take photos between getting back on the highway and heading home. Hope you enjoyed the tour. I know I did.
Faux Farm Girl
Annie