Trip to the Hutterites

The back of one of the row of houses. The front has a little deck and grass area. Most everyone has flowers. I was able to take pictures just not too many as requested by the Garden Boss, Mary who gave us the tour. I wanted to be respectable to her. It was raining outside as well so it was a little easier to keep my camera inside my jacket.
The ultimate laundry room. The smell was delightful. Everyone is responsible for their own laundry.

The bread machine. This is like my Bosch times 100!! It can make over 100 loaves of bread at a time. They make 80 loaves a week. The girls take turns doing different jobs for a week, baking, cooking, cleaning, and a week off.
A daughter took Chloe downstairs and did her hair like they do. She loved it and was very happy.

A room in the basement of the lady who was giving us the tour.
Russell is playing with the scale on the end of the potatoes belt. Other veggies are weighed here as well.
Here is inside the root cellar. Under the planks of wood is a trench. Before the bins are filled with potatoes, the wood is taken off the trench. When they want potatoes from the bin, water is pushed up the trench and potatoes are floated are down these trenches, to a conveyer, then a washer. Quite a neat process.

This is inside the woodworking shop. Beautiful craftsmanship. When every kids turns 15 they get a dresser, bed frame, and night stand of their own.

This is inside the welding and mechanics shop. The young boys who are interested are encouraged to get their journeyman welding ticket. They fabricate some metal bracket type pieces for the oil company. They shop has a big crane and the end has double doors to get combines in their.
Foam from warm milk.
They only milk 4 cows and use the milk for their own consumption. To buy quotas to sell milk is very expensive and not profitable.

This poor cow was leaking milk as soon as she heard the milk machine going on the other cows.
One calf that is about a week old getting fed from a pail.
All the stalls are cleaned. One thing about Hutterites is they are VERY clean. We were very privileged to have a tour and look inside their life. Not sure I could live like that but there are some aspects I could use too. Everything is supplied to you by the colony. You have no need of money. Everyone gets $20 a month. I'm assuming they spend that on little gifts for someone else or something like that. You might think they are "cheap" but they aren't. Everyone has expensive, good quality shoes and jackets. The girl who braided Chloe's hair was tired of all the walls everywhere being white. So she picked out a darker brown for her room and green for the bathroom. Her brothers thought she was crazy, but this makes her happy. They are not strict on things like that.

We were able to check out the school room as well. There are 2 rooms and 2 teachers. The kids were so cute and welcomed us into their class. It was good for Russell and Chloe to see how other kids go to school. Between the 2 classrooms is a science room.

Mrs. Mary wanted to take the kids with her to her house while I went and got the truck. Russell and Chloe were excited to go and not shy. Mrs. Mary is a grandma and you can tell. She had great hospitality.

To go back to the beginning on how this all started, Curtis got a phone number of someone there where we could pickling cucs from. With the Hutterites, it's all about who you know. Curtis knows some the men there from going out on service calls. Once the connection was put together that I am Curtis' wife and Curtis worked on their combines, we were good. When I stepped into the kitchen and introduced myself, Leonard who knows Curtis, came over and told me has not met another mechanic who knows combines are well as he does. He really appreciated the work Curtis did for them. It's nice to hear complitments. They are sad to see him gone from John Deere. The Birch Hill Colony was always the favorite place for Curtis to go because of the hospitality, including meals!

Mrs. Mary invited us to come back for a visit another day. I'm sure we will. I told her we will need cucs next summer again for sure!