Photo Essay

I would be lying if I said I didn't feel out of place in the Amish community. Who wouldn't feel out of place in an environment so different than our own? However, something about the Amish was yet so welcoming and accepting of an ignorant group of tourists. They understood how different we were, but they firmly established that neither their lifestyle nor ours was inherently better than the other. They were simple, kind people, and I appreciated and respected that. Hence, the photos I took were not of their agriculture or their technology (or their lack thereof); I noted the little trinkets and such that emulated their warm, godly lifestyle:

I know these quotes don't really embody the full philosophy of the Amish lifestyle, but they serve as an appropriate reminder. They reveal that, yes, the Amish are very different from the rest of the world, but they are not separate from the world. They welcome others, they encourage others, and they worship the same God that we do. That's what really caught my attention.

Fair Oaks Farm, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. Right from the start, our tour guide referred to us as "city folk," and I immediately received such a remark as condescending. Thus, I already wrote off everything he had to say before he even said it. The Amish, who are as far from "city folk" as is humanly possible, never once made such a remark during our time in their community, but this industrialized dairy farm had the audacity to claim themselves the real farmers of America. That was my analysis, at least. As a whole, the farm was disconcerting:

It all seemed like a show. There was nothing personal about it; they didn't care about the cows, they were showing off their agricultural conquests, and they expected us to appreciate them for the work that they did. I was a little turned off, to be honest. I wasn't impressed with them. The birthing barn was disgusting, the barns were crowded, and the little carousel the cows rode while getting milked almost made the cows seem like prisoners. They kept reassuring us that they had the cows best interest at heart, but it all seemed to industrialized to be sincere. I bet the Amish would call these guys the "city folk" of farming.

Anyway, in conclusion, I present to you "Jayme Putney as Text"