More Amish communities settling in Minnesota

Editor’s note: The members of this Amish community did not want the faces of individual members featured in photos. The Forum honored that request.

FERTILE, Minn. - Edwin Lambright stops in his tracks and looks down at the ground. He stoops over, parts the grass with his hands and points out three eggs cradled in a round, perfectly constructed bird’s nest on the ground.

Behind him, cream-and-black Holstein cattle graze along a green hill. Rows of well-tended vegetables sway in the breeze. A loon calls from the distance.

“I really feel at home here,” says Lambright. “It’s like where I grew up.”

Lambright may feel at home, but as a member of the Amish faith, his lifestyle is still relatively new to these parts. The locals here are still adjusting to the sight of horse-drawn buggies.

The Lambrights are part of a new community of about 70 Amish people who settled on farms southeast of Fertile 16 months ago.

They’re the second settlement in Polk County. Another group has lived near McIntosh for about three years.

These young settlements represent an ever-expanding segment of Amish people who are pushing westward in search of more affordable farmland, a rural lifestyle and proximity to other Amish families.

Their decisions to leave are often prompted by suburban sprawl, land costs, tourism or other intrusive activities, zoning or similar governmental disputes, the local business climate and employment needs.

Minnesota, especially, has become an Amish magnet. Last year, the state saw a 9 percent increase of that population, the second-highest rate of growth in the nation.

Edwin and his family moved from Wisconsin’s Hillsborough County. That area has grown increasingly more crowded, making it difficult for younger family members to expand and buy land, says Polk County Extension agriculture educator Jim Stordahl. And Wisconsin’s farmland can cost $4,000 to $5,000 per acre, as compared to the $1,500-per-acre average in northwestern Minnesota for good, fertile farmland.

Their new home’s sandy-loam soil and a year of ample precipitation have helped the family’s vegetable business quickly take root. “It seems like if you threw seed on the ground and stood out of the way, it just grew,” Edwin says.

Stordahl has worked extensively with both Amish groups, and says they are a welcome addition.

“These are the most delightful people you can imagine to have in town,” he says. “They’re gentle, honest, forthcoming. They add a lot to the community.”

But before the Lambrights moved here, some local residents were concerned the group would “come in here and bid up the land,” Stordahl says.

Instead, Lambright and his Amish neighbors have gravitated toward small chunks of real estate that the large-scale, commercial grain farmer doesn’t want, Stordahl says. They bought acreage that provided woods for fuel and building materials, ponds and pasture for their livestock, and some land for crops.

“They’re willing to fuss over land that’s not best suited to soybeans, but makes wonderful pasture,” Stordahl says. “In many respects, I think it’s been complementary.”

A simple life

At the helm of the Fertile community are Edwin and his wife, Edna. Their Amish settlement, or church unit, also consists of their 12 children, their children’s spouses and their grandchildren.

The Lambrights are polite but reserved around outsiders. Their faith values humility and rejects arrogance and pride, which they call “Hochmut.” It’s fear of “Hochmut” that makes them avoid photographs or being singled out.

Edwin, who is in his 50s, has an unlined face aged only by large glasses and a gray beard. Edna, her daughters and her granddaughters all wear their hair up and tucked under white prayer caps. Edna’s simple blue dress is fastened with pins instead of buttons, which some Amish forsake because of their potential for ostentation. She also wears a black apron, which she later knots into a pouch so she can carry peas and beans home from the garden.

Both speak in a formal, softly accented English when visiting with non-Amish visitors. They often address each other in Pennsylvania German, more commonly known as “Pennsylvania Dutch.”

The couple sits at the large, oak dining table that dominates the first floor of their home. The air is dark, cool and silent, minus the electronic hum of household appliances.

Their home reflects the simple, functional, hardworking lifestyle. The couches are well-worn. Jeans dry by a large wood cooking stove, which one of their teenage daughters lights with business-like efficiency. There are few wall hangings and no photos. An exception is a prominently displayed family poem, which hangs by the front door as a reminder to all who leave or enter here:

“Busy, busy, too busy to pray

Busy with duties and cares of the day;

Busy from morning way into the night

Too busy to pray or even live right.”

While Edwin and Edna talk about their farm, one girl, a 6-year-old named Ida, sits at the table beside them and watches visitors intently. When Edwin prompts her in German to retrieve a flyswatter, she quickly does as asked. A 4-year-old boy, sporting a bowl haircut and black trousers with suspenders, plays a Mancala game.

Children are expected to pitch in and work, whether in the garden, the dairy barn or the house. Still, there’s time to play and learn, too. The settlement is planning to open an Amish school, which will be taught by an Amish teacher who was hand-picked by the community. All kids will attend until grade eight. They study reading, writing and arithmetic, along with health, geography and German.

Good stewards of land

The Lambrights are dairy farmers by trade, and provide about 2 tons of milk per week to the bulk market. Their herd of 17 Holsteins is milked by hand and with impressive speed. They also raise 7 acres of vegetables, which they sell to local residents and through Community-Supported Agriculture shares.

The Amish are known as respectful stewards of the land, and the Lambrights are no exception. Their gardens were certified organic in Wisconsin. They haven’t gone through the paperwork to gain official organic status in Minnesota, although they essentially farm the same way. If any chemicals are used, they choose natural formulations like Pyganic, derived from chrysanthemum flowers.

Mostly, they rely on good old-fashioned sweat equity and ingenuity to keep crops free of pests and weeds. The children are paid a penny for each bug they pick off a plant. Edna says she didn’t care for gardening as a child; now it’s her favorite thing to do. “I love it so much that I would neglect my housework,” she says, smiling.

She especially likes to weed carrots – a ritual that triggers nostalgic memories. Edna recalls how, as a young bride, she received word that her 17-year-old brother had drowned. On that day, she walked to her garden and plucked out every weed growing among the feathery carrot greens. “I watered the carrot patch with my tears,” she says.

Welcome neighbors

Since moving here, Edwin and his sons have worked to improve their 120 acres. There are tentative plans to tap into a lake to install a drip irrigation system. They also rely on crop rotations, composts and green manures, in which crops like rye are planted and then plowed into the soil to nourish it. “It makes the soil sweet,” Edwin says. “Things grow better and have a better taste.”

Rye also has an alleopathic effect, meaning it attracts beneficial bugs and releases certain chemicals so weeds don’t grow. Such practices are trendy today, but the Lambrights have always done it that way. “We grew up with this knowledge under our fingernails,” Edwin says.

As a result, the Amish have become CSA darlings by producing whole, fresh, healthy food. They eat that way themselves, too.

Edwin shakes his head as he talks of once buying beautiful, red tomatoes from a grocery store as a special treat for his family.

“That was such a disgrace,” he says. “It was like chewing on cardboard.”

All farm work and housework is done without modern conveniences, such as tractors, telephones or electricity. It’s up to each church unit how much technology they will use. (The Lambrights, who are Old Order Amish, differ from the Beachy Amish and some of the less-conservative Mennonite groups, who may drive motor vehicles and dress less conservatively.)

The Amish settlement in Fertile will use modern conveniences if it’s necessary. They refrigerate the milk they sell and will use a non-Amish person’s cell phone if necessary. They also will use gasoline motors to power washing machines and even a retro-fitted typewriter.

Some people in the predominantly Norwegian-Lutheran area have complained the Amish don’t contribute much to the local economy, but Stordahl takes issue with that. Even if they are eligible for social services, they won’t accept it, Stordahl says. “The flip side is they don’t take much out of the community, either. They aren’t coming in and being a burden on the local tax base.”

As many Amish settlements do, the Lambrights have hired non-Amish liaisons, who can use 21st-century tools such as blogs, websites and Facebook posts to market their old-school produce and wares.

Some of the Amish women have introduced non-Amish women to their doughnut-making skills and the secrets to making their own cheese.

Neighbors Matthew and Patricia Erickson have purchased produce and sold hay to the Lambrights. Patricia says she and her husband enjoy getting a handwritten note from the Lambrights whenever they need to buy hay or are requesting help. “It’s a simpler life,” she says. “I think it’s wonderful.”

In working with the Amish, Stordahl is most struck by one thing: They seem more content than most other people he meets. He thinks they might be onto something. “We’re all looking for something that will make us happy. I think they do understand what it takes to be happy.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Readers can reach Forum reporter Tammy Swift at (701) 241-5525

Facts about the Amish

• The Amish are a devout, very traditional Christian faith dating back to the 1500s. They value simple living, plain clothes, close church and family relationships, limited use of modern conveniences, rural life, hard work and humility. The Amish believe large families are a blessing from God.
• Their total population of 249,000 has jumped 10 percent since 2008. This is largely due to their birth rate, as many Amish families have five or more children.
• About half the Amish are under 18, meaning the community tends to focus much of its energy on young people and schools.
• About two-thirds of Amish still live in the traditional strongholds of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, but they continue to spread west, particularly into the Midwestern corn belt. This is partly due to rising land costs. Farmland in Lancaster County, Pa., can command $15,000 per acre.
• There are currently Amish settlements in 28 states and Ontario – and some Amish parties have scouted for suitable properties in Alaska and Mexico.
• Members of Amish settlements typically try to live close to each other. This is partly determined by the distance neighbors can efficiently travel by horse-and-buggy in a day.
• Most Amish use horse-drawn farm equipment. They typically own work horses, such as Percherons, as well as lean, fast, buggy horses.
• The Old Order Amish typically don’t build churches, but take turns worshiping in each other’s homes. The rules of the church, the Ordnung, must be observed by every member.
• As Anabaptists, church members practice nonresistance and will not serve in the military.
• Members who refuse to follow Amish rules may be shunned.
• The Amish population has lower cancer rates, according to a 2010 Ohio State study. Researchers attributed the lower incidence of cancer to clean living, lots of exercise, fewer sexual partners, limited tobacco use and modest dressing, which protects the skin from sun damage. The Amish do, however, have more genetic disorders because of intermarriage within a small population.
• Nearly all Amish descended from a group of about 5,000 in the early 20th century.

Sources: The Associated Press; Jim Stordahl, Polk County Extension; Wikipedia

If you go

• What: Day Trip to Amish Country
• When: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11
• Where: The Edwin Lambright farm near Fertile, Minn. (Participants will meet at the Cash Wise parking lot in Moorhead by 9 a.m. and take a bus to the farm.)
• Info: Tour 6 acres of gardens and have a chance to buy locally grown produce. Afterward, the group will tour the gardens at nearby Bergeson Nurseries and eat boxed lunches.
• Fee: $45 for Moorhead School District residents and $49 for nonresidents. Register online at https://communityed.moorhead.k12.mn.us or by calling (218) 284-3400.

For more information

Lambright Farms will offer fall CSA boxes Sept. 6 through November. Applications can be filled out at Sydney’s Health Market, 810 30th Ave. S., Moorhead. Cost is $350; full-shares available only. For more information, search for “Fertile Family CSA” on Facebook.

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