“We went to a farm.”
“Hmm… that sounds… fun?”
This was a common conversation with my friends Monday mornings. It seemed that at least one of my friends would visit a farm with their family over the weekend. And while they seemed to flock to farms, I was doing everything I could to avoid them.
Farms, they just aren’t my thing. When our friends would bring that option up to us, we would suggest anything and everything else. Then one day, we were tricked. And the plans we had settled on, well, they changed at the last-minute. Instead of the beautiful park walking distance from our apartment, we were going to go to a farm.
The whole drive there, I was nervous. I’m not an animal hater, but I’m not an animal lover. I didn’t want to pet anything, feed anything, milk anything, and I definitely didn’t want to clean up after anything. Our drive took us out of our city, past several cute german towns, on and off the autobahn, more cute smaller towns, and finally into a large area where we could scream as loud as we wanted, and no one would hear us.
We found the farm and walked in and I was immediately happy that we were there.
Yes, there were animals. Cows, goats, donkeys, probably other things to; I wasn’t even paying attention. The farm was filled with families! There were kids from my son’s age (2) and up!
Immediately we all noticed that there were plenty of riding toys for the kids. There was actually enough for each kid to have more than one! (And so my son and his friend immediately grabbed two each. One to ride, and one to drag.)
There was a field filled with playground equipment (a see-saw, a trampoline, swings, slide, climbing toys).
They kids could play on big tractors.
And while the kids ran, jumped, slid and played, the adults could sit outside with a cup of coffee and a slice of organic cake sold at the cafe on property. The cafe even had a small area of handmade goods on sale.
The best thing about all of this? It’s free! The snacks were typical cafe prices, but all the activities at this farm were free of charge. The crowd is definitely more local, but the staff speak great English. I highly recommend a farm visit for any family looking for a relaxing day for themselves away from a city, and some fun activities for their children.
Oh, and I didn’t have to milk any animals!
For more information on this farm:
We visited the Hof Zur Hellen, located less than hour from the city of Dusseldorf, Germany. For a small price, you can arrange a tour with the farm to learn more about organic farming. The website is in German, but translates nicely with Google Translate.
I never knew that a visit to the farm could be so fun. So tell me, is this how farms are everywhere? Have you visited a farm, what was your experience?