Today we had a first here on the farm. We took the gang and went to an Amish auction. It was so interesting. I knew that some of you all would have absolutely LOVED it.

Anyway they do this auction twice a year in a small nearby community and Amish and Mennonites come from all over the state to participate, as well as us Englishers (as they call us). I couldn’t believe how cars were parked for a mile just to get to the auction. So we parked and walked up.

Oh, you should have seen all of the horse and buggies lined up. It would have made a great picture, but we still haven’t gotten a digital camera yet.

Right inside the gate to the auction, they had the buggies that were available for auction and it was kind of neat to get to see them up close. We looked at the different styles, wheels and the such. From what we hear, each local group’s bishop pretty much sets the rules for what style of buggy that they will drive. The bishop also decides what type of clothing is allowed for their group too. You could tell the Old Order Amish because they wear almost solid black. At first I wondered if they were in mourning or something and then I realized that they only wear black. I think it has something to do with not drawing attention to yourself. They don’t even allow zippers, so you saw lots of buttons.

One of the groups there, the women only wore teal dresses, others were allowed to wear calicos or small prints. Some of the women wore only the white prayer caps, but I noticed others that could wear bonnets or scarves as their head covering. I figured that they must not be from around here because most of both the Amish and Mennonites around here wear the white prayer caps. You could even see how the different groups style their hair. With the young girls, you could sort of tell if their hair was braided under their cap or just in a bun, while with the boys you could see either a bowl style hair cut or a shorter style. Most of the fellows around here wear the straw hats, but there was a huge group there of men wearing black straw type hats. The ones with the black hats seemed to be allowed to wear more colors and were more outgoing while the plain straw hat ones were more reserved.

It was pretty interesting to people watch there, but I do want to tell you about the actual auction too.  More to come...