My new respect for the Amish
We recently sold our farm to an Amish family. This is the type of Amish that do not believe in using electricity, cars, or any other modern conviences. In the back of my mind I have always wondered how they could compete in the farming business today where we have huge farms with huge tractors and large herds of cows. They can only farm small acreages with their horses and non-modern equipment, especially when one considerst that there is very little profit margin in dairy farming today and farms are very expensive. In spite of all these obsticals, they seem to have the money for large down-payments and and then pay off whatever remaining debt they have in a very short time.
All of the above handcaps have always made me wonder how can they make it in today's competative market. Well, I did a little mental math and a whole new picture emerges. If you don't use electricty, that means no electric bills, and they don't have phones, so no phone bill. Naturally they don't have TV's., so no cable bills. We then can go on and on; no gas bills, no car expenses, and very little food expenses because they all have their own gardens and raise their own chickens, etc. Because they don't accept Social Security, they don't have any SS deductions and one begins to discover that whereas, ordinary famers have tremendous expenses, the Amish have almost not. Consequently, whatever milk check they have is almost all profit that can be used to pay off any loan they might have on the farm.
In addition a new moral environment emerges. No TV means no MTV, no video games, no corrupting movies, etc. No radios mean no rap and pop music corrupting their children's impressionable minds. What you are left with is a simple moral wholesome life style right in the midst of a corrupt and evil society that they are almost completely isolated from. All things considered, one begins to wonder? Who is better off, us with all of our modern conveniences or they with their simple uncluttered livestyle.
