Every winter, over almost a century, hundreds of Amish and Mennonite families arrived from their homes in the icy quarter of the United States and Canada in Pinecraft, a small, Sunny area in Sarasota, Florida. Arriving on chartered buses, specializing in the transportation of “ordinary people” from areas such as Lancaster, PA and Holmes County, Ohio, they rent a modest Bungalow and stay for a few weeks, and sometimes months at a time. For many, this is the only time of the year that they spend with people from other communities than their own.
Pinecraft was originally drawn to the affordable real estate prices and off-season agricultural potential of the first Amish families began to arrive in the mid-twenties, with the idea of growing celery. They found unfavourable soil, but is relatively sluggish lifestyle. Now, without the sheds, to raise or to milk the cows or prepare a lasagna, as a rule, strict rules of Anabaptist life are suspended in Pinecraft, an internal area, which in recent decades has extended to more than two hundred and eighty acres. Earrings usually are forbidden, you can see glittering from under white bonnets, and houses equipped with satellite dishes. Horses and carts were anywhere to be seen, but adult tricycles abound. Swimming is permitted; volleyball and shuffleboard is welcome; ice cream cones nightly ritual.
Buses begin their routes at the end of October and travel until April. Them in the middle of the day departures and arrivals, to attract cheering crowds and work as the organizing principle for life in Pinecraft, which photographer Dina Lithuanian prisoner to new York in February, is a place of brief rest for people who consider work sacred.
Young women waiting at the bus stop.
A family rides bikes near the Park Pinecraft, where the community gathers on the weekends for music and fish for dinner.
In the yard of the family home.
Two women walk past a mural depicting the ideal of life of the Amish home.
Local ice cream shop is a popular hangout after dark.
Game night women’s volleyball is the main spectacle of the community.
In Pinecraft, as a rule, strict rules of Anabaptist life are suspended.
Spectators watch a night of volleyball.
On early Saturday evenings, as in the Amish community and local residents of Florida will gather for the weekly fish fry.
The first Mennonite women’s bocce-ball game in Pinecraft. Men players to stand on the side to watch and cheer.
Women prepare food at a picnic.
A young couple and their son the late afternoon sun.
A woman rides a tricycle with three children.
A woman checks the bedroom of the house will be sold at auction.
The family is ready to return home on a chartered bus that will travel to Ohio, and then in Idaho.
Sourse: newyorker.com
