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I know you’re mostly outside the culture now, but my question is in what ways do you think the Amish world has changed? Are there any traditions that have been lost or are disappearing? Ally, your question has really made me think about how little I know about this issue, given that I’ve been out…

I have been working on a website lately. It is still a work in progress, but I’ve launched it. You can goggle my name (Saloma Furlong), and it should be one of the first things to come up, or else you can visit it directly: https://salomafurlong.com/Welcome.html. I would welcome any suggestions or comments, especially if…

The idea that parents encourage the youth to sample the world with the hope that this inoculates them against the world is very much a myth. ~ Anonymous Amishman In my quest for accurate information about “rum springa” in the Amish culture, I found two things that give me hope that the current view of…

What made you decide to leave the Amish faith? Until one of my readers asked me this question, I didn’t realize that I hadn’t addressed my reasons, except in passing. Though it takes a whole book to really convey the nuances of what went into my decision, I will attempt to give at least a…

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~ Melodie Beattie We had a taste of spring in Western Massachusetts this past week. For me, spring and summer means ironing, considering I like wearing cotton clothing in the warmer weather. Wednesday, as I was ironing my first…

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson This has been a busy week, so I have not had a chance to post. I finally did get my website launched a while ago, and I updated it this week. Here…

Now I will tell the story of how one of my sisters and I did the unthinkable when Mem was in the sugarhouse one spring. However, first I need to set the background. Every church district in every community varies in its adherence to the set of church rules or “Ordnung.” And then each set…

As I look out my window at the patches of snow, and the big, white, billowy clouds scuttling across the sky, I am reminded again of the weather immediately preceding sugaring when I was growing up. I will conclude my account of what sugaring was like on our farmette today. On a Saturday when sugaring…

Even though Western Massachusetts has been thrown back into winter, which doesn’t remind me very much of sugaring weather, I will continue my nostalgic musings about sugaring in my childhood days. We finished washing sap buckets the next day after school. Datt scattered the clean buckets throughout the woods the following day. When we came…

A friend told me some years ago that February is the sunniest month of the year. Since then I’ve taken notice and she is right about that. So far I’ve seen the sun every day this month, and sometimes for the whole day long. I love that the days are lengthening, and that we get…