Shoutout to Old McDonald for inspiring the title. This blog will cover my first three full days on the Cornelissen Farm, which took place from Wednesday, April 24th to Friday, April 26th. I’m a bit behind on blogs between traveling to Amsterdam for King’s Day this weekend (more on that hopefully soon) and the limited wifi at the farm. Thank you all for the comments; I’ve been responding to many of them, just a bit later than I’d like.
I’ll start out with a bit of introductions per usual before I get into the type of work I’ve been doing on the Cornelissen’s farm. Bert and Manon (Cornelissen is their last name) run their small farm. The have operated the farm for over 35 years, and don’t seem to run it for any financial gain. Besides keeping Bert and Manon busy in retirement, the farm also serves as a temporary home for people with disabilities. Francine is the only person currently living on the farm in this capacity (though it seems like there is room for at least 2-3 more people). Bert and Manon built the lovely house I stay in – it looks like a traditional Dutch home with a thatched reed roof, yet is more modern on the inside. The second story of the home houses two unexpectedly large conference rooms; on my second night here Bert hosted a beekeeping seminar for 15 people (it lasted over 4 hours into the night).
Now to introduce the larger cast of characters on the farm: the animals. While the Red Lock Farm was home to a number of animals, it does not quite compare to the diversity of fauna here. There are 3 cows, 2 donkeys, 4 sheep, 2 pigs, 5 chickens, 2 roosters, 3 turkeys (2 female, 1 male), a rabbit, cat, and a dog.
The purposes of having some of the animals made more sense to me (ie chickens for eggs and Ivy the dog for companionship), but many of the others did not. Turns out the turkeys serve the same purpose as the chickens (laying eggs), but do it in a more flamboyant style.
The pigs are the garbage disposal of the farm. Whatever the other animals don’t eat goes to them. The sheep eat lots of grass in the orchards and the meadows. Unlike the 4 sheep on the Red Lock Farm which were old and slow, these sheep are scarily fast.
While I thought the use of the cows would be obvious (milk), the cows are actually not milked. In the past, Bert and Manon made cheese at a small scale, but decided to stop about 10 years ago because it was just too much work for the amount of cheese they produced. For now, the main purpose of the cows is like the sheep: they graze the fields and eat grass. Except that isn’t true right now, as the rainy weather has made the grass too muddy for the cows. If the cows were to graze, they would completely destroy the terrain under their massive weight. The cows spend all of their time inside the barn for now.
I really don’t know what the donkeys do. They don’t graze the fields. They don’t eat leftover scraps. And they don’t sound like Eddie Murphy. Every morning we walk them over to their run (it kinda looks like a gravel equestrian track) to move around, and then walk them back to the barn at night.
When I asked Bert what the purpose of keeping all of these different animals is if they are more work than help (I’m looking at you, donkeys), he kinda shrugged at me. He said past people with disabilities who have stayed at the farm have asked for certain animals (ie donkeys and rabbits) because they are fun to watch and pet. Of course once the guests move on from the farm, the animals stay and Bert and Manon have to continue to take care of them.
Transitioning a bit, I’ll share what the normal morning routine is at the farm. I meet Bert at 8am by the barn, where we begin feeding all of the animals. The sheep, cows, pigs, donkeys, and chickens/turkeys all get different food, so it takes some time to get everything sorted out. Ivy the dog assists us in this and all of our activities throughout the day. Ivy throughly enjoys when we feed the other animals because she munches along with them.
It’s really funny to watch Ivy eat the hay alongside the massive cows. If one of the cows get too close to her, she’ll bark and tell them to back off. Ivy’s clearly the alpha animal on the farm, she’ll run in the donkey pen and attack them at Bert’s command.
Ivy is a mix between a Belgian Shepherd and a Border Collie, which explains her looks and her smarts. She’s relatively good at being useful around the farm, but needs to learn that chasing cars isn’t a good idea. She loves to follow us around the farm during the day, and looks forward to getting belly rubs after a long day’s work of watching us do a long day’s work. Before she can get belly rubs though, she gets to take part in her actual favorite part of the day. Every morning after the animals are fed, Bert goes on a 3 mile bike ride, which is Ivy’s walk. In the beginning she is leashed onto his bike, sometimes pulling him. Once we get onto a less busy road, she is unleashed and runs around like crazy, dashing between the canals and grasses. Bert bikes along at his steady pace, with Ivy running around at her own discretion, making sure to never stay too far away. On the days it rained, she loved jumping in all of the puddles. I haven’t taken any photos yet of her on our bike rides (after all I am riding a bike), but I’ll make sure to take one and include it in a future blog.
After our bike ride, we eat breakfast (usually bread with jams and cheese), and then begin the day’s work. Every day has a different project in store for us, which has been a welcome change after the tedium of squashing bugs and weeding. Projects have included: pruning apple trees, dismantling spare wood (screw by screw), cutting down a decent size tree (I had to dig up all the roots before I cut it down with an ax), pulling out nettles in the orchard, and cleaning the donkey pen (yes that meant shoveling and scraping shit – Bert wanted it spotless). I don’t have photos of all of the activities, as I didn’t want to get my phone dirty (sorry, no photos of me shoveling donkey dung).
Bert is 77 years old; he made me quite nervous when he climbed to the top of the 15 foot latter and then dangled above it while he cut off smaller branches at the top of the apple tree. He tried to reassure me that he’s done this many times before, but in the process of remembering past instances he reminded himself of the many accidents he had (which of course made me more concerned). Thankfully there were no accidents on this occasion.
We have a break for tea/coffee around 10:30, and then for lunch around 12:30. For lunch, Bert and Manon usually just eat bread, butter, jams, and cheese again. Deli meat is put out too, and I usually eat more of that. I’ve had a few culture shock moments at lunch. One time, Bert scoffed at me incredulously when I spread mustard on my bread to prepare my sandwich. When I asked him if I did something wrong, he said yes, since I put mustard on my bread. I asked why this was so bad (especially when considering that mustard was on the platter of condiments he brought out each lunch), and he just responded by saying mustard is for meat, but not bread. I really didn’t understand/agree with the logic there, so we just agreed to disagree and moved on (and I continued to put mustard on my bread of course).
A few days later during lunch, Bert had a quick outburst in Dutch (maybe containing some expletives, who knows, my Dutch is nonexistent), while I was putting deli meat on my sandwich. When I asked him again if I had done something wrong, Manon politely told me that he asked me to not put so much deli meat on my sandwich (this was 3 thin pieces we’re talking about). When he began speaking English again, he said I shouldn’t use so much as it was expensive. I apologized, and offered to pay him back or buy my own deli meat. He said no, but went on to explain what I see as the main reason he was upset with me. Bert seems to be quite cynical of America and Americans, and views overeating as one of the chief American sins. While I would contest that my sandwich was a far cry from a good example of Americans’ overindulgence, Bert saw it differently. He went on to say that while in The Netherlands, I should follow Dutch culture, not American. Apparently Dutch culture is just eating bread, butter, and cheese and calling it a meal. It’s also a good time to note that a popular Dutch meal is a slice of bread with butter and chocolate sprinkles. While this seems crazy (and lacking any nutrition) to me, I didn’t comment anything while Manon enjoyed the snack for lunch.
Ultimately I said bread and butter wouldn’t be enough to sustain me through the work day, and we once again agreed to disagree (with me eating my “American” sandwich once more). I don’t think Bert meant any harm; he was raised in a Netherlands that was much less culturally diverse than it is today. Rural Netherlands also does not come close to comparing with the diversity of Amsterdam or other big cities, so my mustard-laden meaty sandwich was very foreign and unwanted. I don’t want to argue too much with Bert, he is my host after all, but I also want to eat a good lunch. I’ve held a slight priority for the latter (so yes I am being fed, don’t worry Mom), but am trying my best to be mindful of Bert’s beliefs. I see wwoofing not just as an opportunity for a wwoofer to be exposed to the culture of the hosts, but as a chance for the hosts to also learn more about the culture of the wwoofer. Dinners have been less contentious as everyone else seems to eat more. Bert and Manon rotate cooking, it’s been primarily vegetarian, and usually quite good.
After lunch, Bert usually takes a break, and Manon helps me do another activity for another hour or two before I am off work for the day. I’ve gone on bike rides on several afternoons already, which has been great after little bike riding on the last farm. The Cornelissen’s farm is in a great location with three National Parks within a bike-able distance. Granted these parks aren’t the Yosemite or Yellowstones of the world, but they are still nice to bike through.
The first few days on the farm were quite rainy, but the next week is looking to be quite warm and sunny (the longest stretch of good weather I’ll have had on my trip). The end of my trip is now rapidly approaching: my flight is scheduled for May 9th (it was originally booked for the 16th, but I moved it up a week since I felt I traveled around the country plenty during my week off after leaving Fruitweelde early).
This next weekend, I’ll bike to Giethoorn, where I’ll spend the night. I knew I wanted to visit Giethoorn, which is known for its quaint canals without cars, before I even arrived in the country. I’m hoping the weather will be nice for my last side trip.
I’ll work on posting my King’s Day blog soon, not sure when exactly that will be. The wifi itself is quite good here, but Bert and Manon turn it off most of the time because they believe it emits harmful radio waves (I don’t have the energy to refute this – the situation has Chuck from Better Call Saul vibes). I try to be reasonable in how often I ask them to turn it on, using my blogs as the excuse for them to do it (gotta download my Netflix shows as well, I’m already through season 1 of the Umbrella Academy, definitely recommend it. I finished the 3 body problem a while ago, looking forward to a season 2). If you’ve made it this far, thanks again for reading!
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