Yoder ? It’s 115 degrees outside, but farmer Kenneth Keim doesn’t begin breaking a sweat until he steps into his slightly cooler dining room.

“It’s a little warm,” Keim, 65, says while holding a glass of iced tea as he takes a break from working his fields south of Yoder. “It’s not as bad as I thought.”

His wife, Katie, has been mowing the grass in the teeth of the summer glare, one of the many chores she and her husband, both Old Order Amish, perform without the benefit – or relief – of electricity.

“We just let the sweat roll and work,” she said in her lightweight cotton dress, matching blue apron, white head covering and flip-flops.

Katie Keim, 62, agrees there are certain things you don’t do in the heat, such as sewing or baking. But she and her husband also reminisce about other hot summers they’ve made it through without the ability to crank the air conditioning or turn on a window fan.

In fact, the couple said they’ve come to dislike going into public areas because of the way the air conditioning makes them feel. They recently went to a restaurant, which they said was so cold it turned Katie Keim’s lips blue.

“Someone who isn’t around air conditioning at all will be able to tolerate the heat,” said Judy Seltzer, director of the Reno County Health Department. “The body acclimates to that process – it still means they must be careful and drink lots of water.”

By day, the Keims keep their windows shut and curtains drawn. At night, the windows are opened and they sometimes turn to personal battery-operated fans.

Lacking the concrete and asphalt of urban areas, the countryside cools off quicker when the sun goes down. Still, Katie Keim said she took a bed sheet and slept on the ground outside their farmhouse on Monday.

“It was lovely,” she said. “It’s so dry right now there were no bugs.”

Not all Amish are as stoical.

Jeff Reihs, night manager at Carriage Crossing in Yoder, said the Amish men who come by for coffee in the morning often stick around in the cool air, and one of the Amish waitresses told her mother she hates to leave for home at the end of the day.

The Keims, on the other hand, said they plan to end their day by taking baths and then heading over to Whispering Pine School, which also lacks air conditioning.

“A group of us are refinishing the wood floors,” Katie Keim said.