Friday Farms Episode 1

I have been on Kurt Freitag's farm for two weeks now. While it is more common to hear in Germany that farms here in North America are a bit bigger, seeing it for myself makes a big difference. The farms are in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by huge fields, which at best belong to the farm itself. Kurt's farm covers 4000 hectares (1 hectare = 10,000 sqm). In comparison, farmers with over 100 hectares in Germany are already considered large. Some of Kurt's fields are already over 400 hectares. In addition to Kurt and his wife, Danita, Kurt's parents and Aaron live here. Aaron is from Germany and has been working here for 9 years. He is employed full-time and lives on the farm, which you see above as a cover photo. The two farms are about 3 km apart as the crow flies. The fields in between naturally belong to the farm ;). There are other harvest helpers here besides me. Wenke from Germany is studying agriculture and also has a large farm of her own. Euan from Scotland also has a farm and works on the farm during the harvest and sowing season every year. Gerry (Kurt's brother) and his son Herni are also helpers here at the moment. Gerry is my roommate in the trailer (a large container divided into two small apartments). With a total of 5 huge combine harvesters (11 meters cutting width) and large tractors, it makes a big impression on me, who is not used to these dimensions from small Leuderode. The people on the farm are very nice and there is always a lot to do. I couldn't have had a better start. There are no animals on this farm, except for three cats, but the neighboring farm has 800 cattle... There are no water pipes. Water either comes to the house by truck or is pumped from the ground. It is pumped in Aaron's house. Unfortunately, it cannot be drunk, so I went to Kelsbey with Henri and Euan to get drinking water. A funny thing. There is a small line coming out of a house there, from which we tapped water. The soil here has many layers of sand, which makes the water quality very good.

I will stay here until the end of October to fill up my travel fund. My tasks are actually very diverse. When there is no harvesting, there is a lot of cleaning to do. Mowing lawns, driving tractors, trimming hedges, tidying up... But the work is always fun because you never work alone, there is a lot of variety, and you are always outdoors. The other day I got to test drive the big tractor in the picture and maybe I'll get a chance to ride one of the combine harvesters too :) After my time on the farm, I will continue to Calgary, where I will meet a friend from my time in Newfoundland. Overall, I haven't made big plans in order to be able to travel freely. What was important to me was actually just starting with a job on the farm and then maybe the job in the winter area :)