Old Order Mennonites are deeply faithful, agrarian-rooted, Swiss-German Anabaptists who have called Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, home for 300 years. Their meetinghouses silently embody their religious traditions, and yet few outsiders have seen the startling utilitarian beauty of these rural structures up close. The author and photographer were allowed rare access to 22 austere houses of worship. The result is a one-of-a-kind book featuring over 300 photos and diagrams that document all aspects of the meetinghouses, from the design of their benches and buggy sheds to the arrangement of tables central to worship. As fast-growing Lancaster County encroaches on the Old Order way of life, their communities are changing. This book is a record of an extraordinary religious heritage.

Kitchen gardens are a long-standing Amish tradition, characterised by their eclectic mix of vegetables, fruit, herbs, and colourful flowers. Planned by the women of the household, they are used not only to feed their families but as an artistic outlet. This book explores the family gardens as a portrait of the women who design, tend, and harvest them. Colour photographs of more than 18 gardens capture their trademark mix of orderliness and ornamentation: marigolds tucked among the melons, cockscombs with the cabbage, and a whimsically painted chair, iron gate, or old balustrade. Included are 32 family recipes straight from the garden: hot-pepper jam, fried green tomatoes, sweet dill pickles, sauerkraut for a crowd, corn fritters, and creamed celery. Like the resourceful women who tend them, each garden has its own personality and beauty.

Every day in Lancaster County, thousands of Plain-sect farm families hitch up draft horses to work their fields, and carriage horses to take them from place to place. These animals are foundational to a faith community that bans automobiles and tractors in a desire to live simple, agrarian-based lives. Stories and interviews accompany over 240 candid photos depicting the most common horses at work and play in Lancaster County-from foals frolicking at their mother's side to six Belgians hitched abreast to harrow a field. The book features six draft horse breeds and five carriage horse breeds-Belgian, Percheron, Mule, Suffolk, Spotted Draft, Haflinger, Standardbred, Morgan, American Saddlebred, Dutch Harness, and Friesian. The photos and stories show how they are trained and cared for, offering profound insight into the emotional connection that Plain people have with their horses.