If you have not heard of Hutterites you are about to! I had never heard of a Hutterite until I moved to Montana. Last week Henry and I got to tour two colonies in north western Montana.
Cliff Notes: (Think of the movie The Village, with a cross of Pleasentville)
Hutterite communes, called "colonies", are all rural; many depend largely on farming or ranching, depending on their locale for their income. The colony is virtually self-sufficient as far as contracting outside labor, constructing its own buildings, doing its own maintenance and repair on equipment, making its own clothes, etc.
They are kind of like the Amish, but they have electricity and embrace technology (in regards to farming). No TVs or Radios.
Ever since I had heard about the colonies I’ve been SUPER interested in their way of life. Being completely self-sufficient in a community of family and friends is fascinating to me.
I thought I would share a few cool details I learned while visiting the colonies.
1. They make their own clothes. Around age 15 girls start learning how to sew and when they get married they receive brand new sewing machine to make clothes for themselves, their husband and children. Each year they get to pick out samples of fabric, they are given enough fabric to make their husband two pants and two shirts and themselves two dresses. Their outfits are all the same (for women) a skirt, shirt and vest. They also wear a head scarf that goes over their ears and hair. The girls I was walking around with told me they never take them off.
2. Education- Each colony has their own school house where the children start at 4 years old and go through the school system until the finish 8thgrade – at age 14 you are considered an adult and are given a job on the colony. You do not pick where you want to work, the colony boss tells you what your job will be.
3. Cooking – at age 17 girls start their rotation in the kitchen, depend on the colony most have a cooking partner and make every meal for the entire colony for a week, then switch with the next cooks. The head cook decides what meals are made. Imagine the amount of food prepared every day! Most colonies are 100-130 people fed 3 times a day! The meals are in a cafeteria type setting, 6:30am, 11:30am and 6pm.
4. Farmers Markets – Colonies make some of their money at farmers markets, they sell vegetables, fruits and baked goods. The bread was AMAZING, they bake twice a week, bread, rolls, pies, etc. Henry really really was hoping they would give him a strawberry rhubarb pie.
5. Marriage – Since you can only marry a Hutterite your choices are a little limited, most girls have to leave the colony and go to a different colony, men cannot leave their colony. While I was walking around the colony I had 4 sisters that kind of attached on to me, they were adorable, two were 17 (twins), 16 and 23. They all had boyfriends from other colonies that they get to see every 6 weeks when the boys come visit for 2 days. They get to talk on the phone at night.
Here are a few pictures from our tour:
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| Breakfast (also was served a Ham Sandwich) |
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| the women prepared breakfast for us |
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| the sheep manager explaining how they run their sheep |
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| young Hutterite girls |
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| Bear trapping demo, this colony saw 14 last week |
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| Housing, 3 bedrooms and basement in each house |
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| young boys in the sheep barn |
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| Turkeys |
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| egg processing, 10,000 eggs a day |
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| peaches for dessert |
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| dining hall |
