I live about 50 miles south of Columbus, Ohio, and we have Amish *everywhere*. In this area, they are the most disgusting and annoying creatures that have walked the earth. I've been to other areas where Amish live, and they are decent - but not around here. The ones around here shower once a week - maybe - so they stink terribly. Their houses and farms deteriorate quite rapidly, and they make nearby property value drop steeply. Of couse, the Amish and their blessed horses are always on the road, doing no good but impeding you from getting somewhere on anything close to a schedule. At night, the majority of them don't even use reflectors on their buggies - a very dangerous situation, since everything is black. I can't count the number of people that have wound up in ditches or over hills or in oncoming lanes because they had to dodge an amish buggy at the last minute.
An Amish man bought a farm neighboring on one that my family owns. We were not at all happy about it. We had been good friends with the former farm owners, and we were a little pissed they just sold it to an Amish man without offering to sell the farm to us or any of the other neighbors - most people around here will do everything in their power to sell their land to a non-Amish man if they are able to. Anyway, this guy put some cattle on the farm, and in no time, they had trampled through the fence that divides his property and ours. He walked to a neighbors house, and had them call us to tell us that our fence was faulty and let his cattle get out. That went over with us like a lead balloon. We bought the highest powered electric fence charger we could find, and strung electric fence along that row, just to get some excitement out of things, since the Amish (at least around here) will only use woven wire, and not electric. While we didn't stand around waiting for his cattle to take out that fence, it didn't take long. He was notified by our family, and several neighbors, that if his cattle destroyed any more fence on the property line of ours or any others, he would have a fight like he had never experienced on his hands. See, the last farm owners had no fence on their land - they just weren't able to take care of it. But because they were nice people, everyone maintained fences around their property - one foot outside of their property line, so that it did not belong to them. This was all noted in the contract of sale, etc. To make a long story short, the Amish man had to contain his cattle in another way.
So he started selling pumpkins in early October. His house was located off of a highway, on a hazardous curve. He set his stand up so close to the highway that everyone that drove past felt that they needed to slow down quite significantly, or they might hit his display. One night, for whatever reason, he took his stand down, but left the pumpkins out along the road - I have no idea how many there were - LOTS. While it was a rather mean thing for someone to do, I did laugh when I drove past the following morning, and there were tire tracks all over the place and all of his pumpkins had been run over.
He got the hint a week or so ago. The farm is now for sale again.
Facebook
Twitter