Monday is Laundry day!
Or at least it seems so. Monday past I was in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Travelling the back roads just free lancing for pictures, but knowing that the Amish country is always a hot spot for photographers. One must in capital letters MUST respect their wishes to not be photographed. They believe it to be against their religion to have an image made of them. Therefore I always try to avoid their faces in one manner or another. I would actually prefer that they not even know I have taken a photo.
It does appear that Monday is laundry day in the entire region. Not sure I know why, but almost every farm I saw had laundry out on the line to dry. It was a clear day, good sun and rising temperatures. Maybe it was just the first day in a long while that they had a chance to hang clothes outside.
Most every farm had a really long line from the house to an outbuilding or barn. Probably on wheels at each end so the pinned piece of clothing could be drawn away from the starting point and back. And I mean the lines were long on some of the places.
It strikes me, every time I visit that area, that the Amish are the cleanest, neatest farming folk you will ever see. Sure the cows can be knee deep in mud when it's raining or has rained, but the homes and farm buildings are always clean and freshly painted. The fields are all groomed and orderly reglardless of the season. I have flown over the region as well and from the air the entire community can be defined by the fields and white barns. It is really a credit to those industrious souls.
Now that's a lot of rope. But the interesting part of that image is the colorful garments amid the traditional black, white and gray standards. Bet there are some young people on that farm.
Another farm with the traditional white buildings and a long hunk of rope from the house to the barn. This one is very typical of almost every farm in the area.
I suspect that the farm pictured here is one of the most photographed pieces of property in Lancaster County. To begin with, it is at the bottom of a small valley with an easily accessed pull off area on the hill. A little different in as much as the color scheme of the farm seems to be good old red,white and blue. More importantly there are five farms in the frame and usually there is always something Amish going on. Here, the manure from the barns is being spread behind two mules pulling the spreader. This is the way they recycle waste into fertilizer. It gets rid of the waste, improves the soil for the future crop and completes the ashes to ashes concept.
Sometimes, I wonder! It's a simple life and probably at times a hard life. But they are all about community and no one goes unsupported by family and friends. The stress and tumult of the city and suburban life styles is just not apparent. Two schools I passed had kids outside playing some form of sport. Each child dressed in the appropriate black garb. They all seemed to be having fun and probably didn't know or care about some of the things the supposed sophisticated in our society worry about. Just wondering!
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