We took my kids to the “family farm” in Germany where my wife’s relatives have been farming for generations. It was a good visit, even though I was thankful it was just a visit.
Farm Livin’ Ain’t The Life For Me! Visiting The Family Farm In Germany
The farm is located near the village of Mulfingen, in Baden-Württemberg near the Bavarian border, with Schwäbisch Hall the nearest town about 25 kilometers away.
Over a decade ago, I wrote a story about how I could never be a farmer…I laughed re-reading that account.
> Read More: How I Learned That I Could Never Be A Farmer
That feeling is unchanged, though there is a certain nostalgia for the simpler life of farm living.
No, simpler does not mean easier. It’s back-breaking work with no days off from sunrise to sunset.
Heidi and I do assign chores to our kids including cleaning their rooms, taking out the trash, unloading the dishwasher, making the green drink (our evening veggie drink), and doing light weeding and watering in the garden. But since my children are essentially city slickers, we thought even a few hours on the farm would be instructive.
We visited some family in the afternoon and arrived in time for dinner, which we enjoyed outside.
I then took the kids for a tour…it’s a small but very busy farm.
Farmwork is honest work…as my wife’s cousins all collapsed inside after a long day, I had a glimmer of regret that the steady rhythm of farming is very different than my line of work. Just a glimmer, though.
I think it’s so cool that my mother-in-law grew up spending summers on this farm and my wife did the same thing…a multi-generational tradition.
CONCLUSION
So what do you think, should I send my kids here to work when they get a little older? I think it would be a very good character-building exercise but it’s also work I’m absolutely not willing to do myself, so it seems a bit unfair to ask them to do it.
In any case, it was a nice visit and I’m thankful to honest farmers everywhere for giving us the food that we often take for granted.
Having grown up in a farming village very close to your in-laws families farm, I can attest that it certainly is hard work, but also very rewarding!
I remember having two kids from the States join us for a few weeks of elementary school during early summer (their mother was German born & raised and had married an American, they were from Minnesota), when the US were already on school holidays, we in Germany not quite yet, as holidays in Southern Germany start in late July for 6 weeks. I always thought that was so neat for them to experience German school for some time!
I would say that it would be a great experience for your kids to spend time on the farm in future, they will remember and cherish it forever I am sure!
Hey did you know that a story about your story on the French teens partying onboard LOT is going viral in Poland now? Not because of your article per se but because a major news website apparently used AI to translate it and post it – with credit to you, but without noting that AI was used in writing their article. Pretty interesting.
https://www.donald.pl/artykuly/MqDcXvZa/onet-opublikowal-artykul-wygladajacy-jak-halucynacje-ai-zostal-usuniety-bez-komentarza?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZ1-IDnRoOykTZlpYOd85kopUonhV5DOdnp9M7HLAhgSRg5RMHN4YNIWR8_aem_Gxz-kp4ggCEVuWw92TGwcQ
That’s fascinating. I have not noticed much traffic on my end from that story.
I’m sat here at a family farm and I’ve just realised I’ve
been distracted by reading of an account of someone at a different family farm
I better just turn off my phone now and look at the real thing
Why is “family farm” in quotes?
Sounds like where the Germans told the Jews 80+ years ago they were headed.
#neverforget
When taken to a concentration camp, Jews were asked about their health and if they could work. Some lazy Jews made excuses by feigning health problems to avoid work. Those Jews were sent to the gas chamber because they were deemed unproductive. They are like the Southwest Airlines wheelchair wounded.
Because it’s the farm of his wife’s cousins and not of his household members.
Hey city boy you lost ? That Audi Q8 is full of mud . Many do take farmers for granted. Gen Z and Gen Alphas subconsciously believe there is just a back room at Erwhon and Whole Foods.
In many Western European countries, good farm land is scarce and too expensive for someone to decide that they want to be a farmer and buy the land. On the other hand, in Western Europe and America, wages are high making it tough to hire a big crew. Imagine if you were in rural areas of MLK County, where Seattle is located. You would have to pay a farm boy employee nearly $20/hour.
Do send your kids to do farm work. Excessive sun exposure will make their sun look like worn leather. They might get backache or injure their knee. They won’t learn the finer points of art, tech, medicine, law, etc. They may even, like in rural America, become right wing, like Maga, AFD, or even Nazi. On the other hand, city slickers become left wing, like Communist, Hamas, or have intense jealousy of the rich, like AOC.
I bet you were singing :” la vaquita dice moo, el perrito wau wau wau,el pollito pio pio y el gatito meow meow meow “.
Your children might think of a summer(s) on the family farm as an adventure rather than from the adult perspective of hard work. They certainly would gain life and cultural perspectives not available living in the LA area.
My grandparents owned a small ranch near Colorado Springs and the idea was that first my older brother and then I could spend summers there (we lived in New England). Unfortunately they had to sell the ranch and move back east due to health issues and the ranch’s altitude of over 8,000 feet.
Send them. I also would have no desire to do farm work but my son would have loved it.
I’d send em. Seems like a win win. If they love it they will be grateful. If they don’t love it they will be grateful for their own life with u.
May take awhile for them to realize it, but either way I think it’s a great experience for them.
My dad’s family owned a family farm in the village where he grew up. Supposedly the land had been in his family for hundreds of years as part of a land grant from the king prior to British rule, but over time, between mismanagement of the land, poor personal financial decisions, and later generations just not having any desire to run a farm, it whittled away to not much by the time my dad was born. My grandmother and grandfather still owned four dairy cows when we went to visit in 1987, when I was 9. Even that was gone by the time we returned 9 years later. I’m hoping to show my son the village when we head to India this summer, but now, “working on the farm” is little more than repeating the tall tales my dad told me (even those being second-hand stories he heard from older relatives).
This is my long-winded way of saying, take your kids to experience true life on the farm one summer, even if it’s only a few days or a week. They’ll surely learn something about how life was for our ancestors, and you never know when that opportunity will be lost forever.
Kinda Captain Obvious here but why don’t you just ask the kids about it since they’ve seen the place? See if they’re interested. As a kid I spent a few summers away in North Carolina and Haiti as well as other places with my siblings and each was an adventure that really showed me something different. It’s a great education but I wouldn’t send them off if they’re unwilling.
One way to lose the chance to inherit the family farm land is to tell the family farmers that you can never imagine being a farmer. Cost a couple of my relatives about $50 million in prime farm land within 30 minutes of one of the most internationally connected airports in Europe. The land ended up with a charitable association that apparently has a history of chasing down old farmers with no known direct descendants.
Remember that after visiting farms abroad that we are supposed to inform CBP at US ports of entry about having been to a farm.
Um. Start with a pet and some raised bed vegetable gardens ( beets, greens , fruits ) . All children should learn survival skills, but you need to work up to that. It’s wonderful Heidi had the opportunity to experience this with her cousins.
Try chickens in the yard for eggs? Does LA even allow that in places zoned only for residential use?
I think it might. My guess is la la land has some designer chickens! We have chickens and quail that lay in awesome colors. Though they do require daily attention. Not ideal for frequent travelers. : )
I would recommend send them for a couple of weeks.
When I was young, my parents owned a cottage on the west coast of Ireland. We used to spend a few weeks there every summer. It was next door to a farm where we got all our fresh milk, eggs and other produce and I would help out for a few days with sheep dipping, shearing and other things. 45 years on I still enjoy those memories.