Thursday, October 8, 2009

Old and New

This is a two part post.

A little know fact about me is that I am very interested in the Amish lifestyle. Tracy and I had talked in the past about how she grew up in a small town in fact it was so small her neighbor was Amish. Well despite knowing this I have to say I was shocked when I turned onto her street to be greeted by this sign.

They were not joking!
Later in the day I saw a group of 15+ Amish children walking home from school. I have to admit this was really exciting to me. I refrained from taking more pictures out of respect (the Amish do not like having their photo taken) it was hard though since there were so many opportunities.
I had to laugh on Sunday when I saw this parking spot at Wendy's notice the bucket on top of the sign.
When I arrived on Friday and knew I had a little extra time I stopped at a road side stand for an apple and chocolate pie (a home made soft Oreo cookie!) Here are some pumpkins at the stand. While at the stand I chatted fora few minutes with the young Amish woman running the stand and was struck with how normal she was, and how normal the Amish community is the the NY community.
Nestled into the hills in the Lowville area are 120 windmills. I loved the juxtaposition of old and new. Each one, called a wind turbine, is 320 feet tall, about the same height as Big Ben in London or the same length as the football field at Giants Stadium.
While some may think these are eyesores I found them to be beautiful! Even more beautiful is the fact that wind is not hurting the environment, it provides income to the town. In fact they were building a new huge school and it seemed this small farming community was healthy as opposed to many struggling small towns. Heck I would let one of these beauties to be put on my land. Standing under this beast I was surprised at how quiet it was.
A beautiful site to me of energy freedom!



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