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Yesterday, I went to an Amish Princess House party. (Yeah, who knew? They LOVE the stuff!) Anyway, I thought it would be a good opportunity to observe how they manage without regular trash pickup on the farm.
I observed that they simply don’t need it.
The Amish bring very little into the house in the first place. (Sometimes I wonder where all my trash comes from. I swear I didn’t bring two barrels of groceries into the house since last week.) You won’t find rooms full of electronic gadgetry that all came in oversized boxes with five pounds of plastic packaging and peanuts. Nor do they need to constantly replenish the batteries in toys (although, yes, they do use batteries for such things as flashlights).
Amish “groceries” are usually homemade. Go to their basements or store rooms and they’ve got shelves and shelves of anything that will fit into a jar — jams, jellies, vegetables, and fruits — and other homemade goods like noodles, beef jerky, cheese, soaps, brooms, clothes, quilts — you name it. What they don’t make, grow or milk, they get from the farmer up the road. And they wash out and reuse all containers.
The party was at a pavilion by the pond. As the kids went for a swim behind us, the women shucked peas while watching the demonstrator. (Amish women NEVER sit idle.) I pitched in with the pea shucking.
The ladies really do love Princess House. As the demonstrator (who was also an Amish woman) held up each item, she let the ladies who already owned it tell about how they use it. They talked about the practicality of the item, not the beauty of it. For example, one woman marveled about the Princess Heritage Juicer, which she uses for milk, which she gets from the farmer next door, and which, she explains, keeps much better in glass than in plastic. The rectangular shape of the container allows her to line them up in her cooler for a better fit than the round jars and jugs that the milk comes in. Those, she can return to the dairy farmer. There’s no trash involved.
All food (clearly homemade) was brought to the party in Tupperware. We had sandwiches (three kinds, pre-made), devilled eggs, macaroni salad, pasta salad (my own contribution), baked corn, vanilla pudding, assorted cakes, shoe-fly pie, strawberry pie, lemon squares — even the pretzels were in Tupperware. Oooh…I just remembered, someone (probably English) brought a bag of chips! (Gasp!) We never opened it.
We did use paper plates, cups and plastic spoons and forks. And I did wonder what they would do with the trash. After the party, we “English” went into the house to keep the grandparents (Mommie and Doddy) company while the rest of the ladies went to the yard to cut grass, weed the garden and finish some other chores for the elderly couple who can no longer do it for themselves. While sitting in the expansive kitchen — the windows wide open to let in a delicious breeze — I smelled smoke. At first I thought something was on fire until Mommie explained that one of the ladies was burning trash. (Aha!)
Okay, they don’t allow trash burning in my neighborhood, but that explains a lot. Still, I think the paper plates, cups and plastic forks would have been recyclable. On the other hand, I’m going to a Tupperware party tonight and I’m already eyeballing the plastic plates and tumblers for summer parties. If it’s dishwasher safe, that’s good enough for me! Now if only someone can teach me to make my own soap.
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