As Amish communities expand across the US, old practices are colliding with modern health codes and testing the limits of religious freedom
They went to the bathroom in buckets.
When the Delagrange family moved to Lenawee county, Michigan, in 2015, they refused to use modern toilets. For religious reasons, they used an outhouse.
Every couple of days, once the container became about half full, someone in the family would remove the 5-gallon pail from their handbuilt outdoor privy and combine the waste with animal manure. The mixture would then get treated with lime and spread on to pastures, where horses and cattle grazed.
This was all very normal for the Amish family, who are farmers.
