Amish
Country
A Brooklyn boy puts himself in farm's way
From the April 22, 2002 Issue of New York
Our Brooklyn 5-year-old said, "I haven't seen a live chicken in a
long time." One of our many, many nagging parental guilts is the disconnect
between the stuff in our refrigerator and the soil it came from. So
we headed to Pennsylvania Dutch country: The area just west of Lancaster,
past the cutesy hex-sign-water-slide-outlet-mall clutter, is an outdoor
museum of America's agricultural past. Many of the struggling family
farms have been bought by a charitable trust so their thousands of
acres won't get plowed under for condo subdivisions.
After a quiet night's sleep in a century-old Georgian farmhouse
-- "It's so dark out here!" he marveled -- Jack, wisely cautious
in his city life, became a free-range child, bounding across the
stubbly cornfields and soft spring grass. When he was invited to
chase two dozen chickens into the henhouse, I thought he'd trip
over his grin. Then he went stomping through the mud in his yellow
rain boots to the goat pens. A one-day-old baby, all knees, wobbled
after its mother. "Want to hold him, Jack?" asked Dotty Hess, co-owner
of the Country Gardens Farm Bed & Breakfast. Silly question. The
wonder on Jack's face as the kid rested serenely in his arms was
downright beatific. The bonus: Dotty named the goat Jack.
Next she drew us a map to the nearby Lapp Valley Farm, where John
Lapp, a Mennonite teen with ethereal blue eyes, engaged us in a
friendly comparative-religions chat as he milked. Later, after sampling
the Lapps' extraordinary vanilla ice cream, we rode a steam engine
through Amish farmland. And that night, back in Mount Joy, we danced
to Irish pirate tunes at Bube's Brewery. At least for one weekend,
Jack was reminded that nature does exist.
-- CHRIS SMITH
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