Lehman’s Country Life

I am the artist painting the life sized mural of the team of Belgian Amish work horses at  Lehman’s in the ‘Buggy Barn’.  These last two days ’Roy and Rex’ took some major steps forward.  I worked on getting more definition and depth on the horses yesterday and then today, I began painting on the harness.  Saddles, bridles and harnesses are referred to as ‘tack’ so today the horses got tacked up!  The team will be painted with a full harness so this will be a long process but very important!  Already I can see how impressive these horses will look hitched up and ready to go! 

If you go to  http://countrylife.lehmans.com/author/suesteiner/  you can see the progression of the mural from blank wall to the current post in reverse order.  I will post updates on the mural every couple days so stop back often! 

Also mark your calenders for Sat. July 12, 2008.  Lehman’s will be having an Art Festival featuring myself and other local artists.  I will be bringing equine and amish art to show and sell.  To see some of my artwork visit www.amish-art.com 

 Thanks for stopping by!   

Sue Steiner

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Journal from Kathi, one of Lehman’s Customer Service Representatives on her trip to Mississippi.

While on sabbatical leave from Lehman’s, my friend Judy and I traveled 1000 miles south to participate in an Elderhostle in Natchez MS along the Mississippi River. While there, it was my pleasure to visit with a couple who have been customers of Lehman’s for many years. Due to my schedule our visit was brief, but being with this delightful couple certainly made my trip more memorable. It was the first time I actually visited with one of my customer friends…..how special ! Oh, we drove down in the blizzard of the decade (even snowed in Natchez) and as we left Natchez it was 83 degrees with blooming azaleas, iris and red bud trees only to return to more Ohio snow.

Natchez MS has been ruled by five different nations and is a town that has been forgotten by time. It is at the southern end of the Natchez Trace and established in the 1700’s but is best known for their many Antebellum mansions dating from the 1800’s which are still as they were when they were first built ! It wasn’t burned during the Civil War and has been preserved for all of us who want to experience authentic living history. Throughout the year a few of these homes are open to the public, however, during their Spring and Fall Pilgrimage about thirty of these private homes are open to the public.

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I have a strange dance that I’m doing most days in my kitchen. It’s a step, slide, step, slide, turn around, lift over, step slide. If I stand still too long, I get chewed on - either on my knee or calf, through my pant leg.And why, do you ask, am I doing this strange dance? Because of little critters in my kitchen!

On Valentine’s Day this year, my husband Norm brought home a newborn kid for me to care for. His mother was a youngster herself and didn’t know how to care for him, much less have enough milk to feed him. As I held him and warmed him in my arms, I got to thinking - if YOU were given a newborn goat or sheep, could YOU care for it properly?
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This is the first of a three part series on how to live an environmentally responsible lifestyle. Entitled “How to teach green,” it will help you instill respect for the earth in your children.

“I can use both sides of paper for drawing.” Allison, age 8

“If you turn the water off when you brush your teeth, over a year’s time you can save a lot of water.” Brandon, age 12

The first step is let your children learn about the environment. Learning is the path to caring.

Start simply. Instead of taking your preschooler to a massive nature preserve for a three-hour tour, collect a few leaves from a favorite tree and examine them under a microscope. Let the learning process begin (literally) in their own backyard. Find something they are already familiar with and learn more about it.
Go outside. It may sound simple, but send your children outside. They need to immerse themselves in the environment before they can care about it. If your children are outside at least once every day, they will become attuned to the seasonal changes, as well as the daily changes. When is the sun the brightest? Why? When does dusk fall? Does it change as the seasons change? What color are the leaves? Is the ground muddy or dry?
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Springtime. The very word conjures up visions of spindly legged lambs bouncing about, chickadees squabbling around the feeder, and trees breaking out in song while the sun beams down benevolently. All very Disney-esque. Unfortunately, I’ve long since been disabused. There’s not going to be a Laura Ingalls look-alike tripping down any of the snow drifts in my backyard any time soon. I have to think that Julius might have gotten to put in the garden come spring of 44 BC if he’d paid better attention to the season- a couple of months of cabin fever is likely to make even the most stoic of Roman Senators a bit cranky.

But there are some undeniable signs that spring is in the air and, rather than hiding under our togas, all that can be done is to grit our teeth and get on with it.
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When the market garden is done for the year (as much as it can be, because there is always something to do) we can sit back and hopefully relax a bit. If the season was good, we can survive the winter with our profits. If not, we must find something to do to make up the difference.

Such is the case for many who try to survive on the income from a market garden or from any seasonal income based project. It can be anything and for those who try to live some type of self- sustaining lifestyle it can be everything.
As for me, I try to survive in the off season so I do not have to work for “the man”. My mind is always working, trying to find ideas to make a few bucks, not to get rich, but to be able to keep doing the things that I love.
This late winter is no different. And my first project hit me right in the head. What started out as a trial run appears to be headed for bigger things, but they will have to wait until next season. Let me explain.

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Lehman’s retail store in Kidron, Ohio features a multitude of authentic historical products for sale. Did you know that the store is also decorated with actual antiques?

As folks walk around the store these antiques are prominently displayed. Some of these antiques are familiar to us, they resemble items we use today in our daily lives. The purpose of other antiques is sometimes not so obvious. Such is the case with one very large antique displayed above the checkouts at the West entrance to the store. Jay Lehman (Lehman’s founder) proudly takes us on a tour of this enormous machine here in this video. Enjoy!

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Recently Galen Lehman took several weeks off from his job as president of Lehman’s. He spent this time visiting suppliers and other businesses he knew and admired. The companies he visited ranged from 1 employee to 300 employees. Most were owned by Amish or Mennonite families. At each stop, he asked, “What is the secret of your success?” This is one of a series of postings about what he learned.

High on a round bump in southern Pennsylvania that locals call the red hill stands an Amish farm house surrounded by a jumble of outbuildings. Each of the outbuildings is dedicated to one part of the process of efficiently producing the best clothes drying rack in the world.

There’s a shop where dowels are turned out from raw lumber that was milled on-site. In fact, each component of the racks are made here…nothing but the screws is bought from any other vendor. (That’s right, rustproof plated screws, not cheap staples that rust like on competing dryers.)

In another building the frames are cut, planned, drilled and sanded. A custom-designed homemade conveyor system delivers the parts from one work station to the next, something I have never seen in an Amish-owned shop before.

Like most Amish shops, the entire operation is non-electric. Modern cutting equipment and the dust vacuum system have been converted to run on motors powered by hydraulic oil pumped by a huge diesel engine.

They know things about drying racks no one else does. For example, they use maple because it’s a good, fine-grained local wood. But oak, another fine local wood, is never used because it can stain your clothes.

Every step in the assembly has been analyzed and fine-tuned to eliminate wasted labor, wasted material and inefficiencies. In fact, they’ve done nothing but make exactly the same drying rack here for 30 years. During that time, they’ve constantly improved the process so that in all those years, the price has increased only slightly. This is the case even though the quality has gotten noticeably better.

The secret of their success is a single-minded focus on making one product in the best way possible. This is one business where new product ideas are not entertained. They already have “their” product. The only question now is how to make it more efficiently.

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Things are moving along on the matched team of belgian horse mural I am painting in the ‘Buggy Barn’ at Lehman’s in the Kidron store.  I am still working on the base and ‘blocking in’ and defining muscles and the bone structure of the horses.  My hope is this will be a place that the visitors coming into the store stop to have their picture taken.  Lehman’s gets visitors from all around the world and even though the Amish sights are common place here in Kidron it is a unique experience for many people.  In the last photo you can see the beginnings of the collar and harness for the horses.  The harness used is quite elaborate so I have a lot of detail still to do in this area.  The horses learn what job is expected depending on the tack they are wearing.  In the field and on the farm these animals play a very important role.  One of the things I most enjoy is seeing the partnership between animal and people.  In the spring during plowing and planting season the farmers are often seen resting their team at the ends of the rows.   Slow and steady is what gets the work done.  It is quite a different mind set than what is often seen in our world today.  The horses also thrive on the routine and when treated with respect enjoy their job.  I know with my own horses they enjoy the stimulation and challenge of training and being ridden and in return, as a good horse person, I provide them the care they need.  To see more work in progress pics click on my name above under the title of this post and you can see the progression of this mural and others I have painted at Lehman’s.  Thanks for stopping by!   

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