Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Recent Road Trip To Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Part IV; Exhaustion!

Exhaustion personified! (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark III; 40-150mm f/2.8 lens @ 110mm; 1/400th sec. @ f/6.3.
As we criss-crossed the back roads of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania looking for unique scenes, we saw many, many Amish farmers plowing and cutting their fields with horse or mule-drawn plows and mowers.  As we passed one field, to our left, we noticed an Amish farmer sitting behind his mules working the field.  However, the mules were almost stationery, walking slower than any I had seen before, taking a step every second or so.  What was going on?

 The thoughts arose that the extremely slow pace was purposeful for seeding or some other activity that required the mules to move at that snail's pace.  The farmer appeared to be looking down at the ground as the team moved very slowly forward.  Maybe there was something he was looking for?  I made a few images and we moved on.

 Only later that evening, while uploading my day's images into Lightroom Classic, did I realize that the farmer was sound asleep.  He must have been exhausted.

 Imagine a way of living, where you do everything manually without the help of anything powered by anything other than an animal, day after day, getting up before dawn and working until after sunset.  No wonder he was exhausted and had inadvertently fallen asleep.  And...this was at 9:16 a.m.!

 My hat is off to him.  What a rare work ethic in today's entitled culture.

 Join me over at my website, www.dennismook.com/. 

 Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

 Dennis A. Mook 

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3 comments:

  1. Dave JenkinsJuly 9, 2020 at 1:33 PM

    Really great photos from Lancaster County, Dennis. I'm envious!

    How interesting that you are friends with the Hilemans! I discovered their blog some time ago and have been checking in from time to time to keep up with their travels. They are living the life Louise and I hope to live if we ever can get disentangled from this house.

    By the way, I grew up in the late '40s/early '50s farming with a team of horses. (Actually a horse and a mule.) I grew the hay for our cows and horses by working the ground with a disc, spreading seed with a hand-operated crank broadcaster, cut the hay with an iron-wheeled mower, and raked it with a riding rake -- everything horse-drawn, of course. I was very fortunate to have an almost 19th century upbringing in a remote part of Indiana in the 20th century.

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    Replies
    1. The Wandering LensmanJuly 10, 2020 at 9:12 AM

      Dave, I hope you have documented your youth with long mostly forgotten experiences from most people's memories. Those kinds of stories become an invaluable window into the past as time and progress march forward.

      Dave and Cindy Hileman are a wonderful couple. We enjoy our friendship and spending time with them. I was the one who told Dave about your blog! He has become a regular reader.

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    2. Dave JenkinsJuly 10, 2020 at 10:03 PM

      My oldest granddaughter wants me to write about my life, but I haven't done very much of it.

      It was somewhat of a shock a few years ago at my oldest cousin's 50th wedding anniversary as we realized that we are each other's oldest living relative!

      Thanks very much for telling the Hilemans about my blog.

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