Visitors stroll the grounds of the Peinhardt Living History Farm on Saturday during the annual Peinhardt Farm Day. (W.C. Mann for The Cullman Tribune)
CULLMAN – On Saturday, Peinhardt Living History Farm put on its longtime community favorite, Peinhardt Farm Day. For more than 20 years, the Peinhardt family and numerous volunteers have opened the old homestead farm to the public for a day of education, entertainment and general fun for all people and all the senses.
Said Peinhardt Farm Board President Jennifer Tucker, “This is the only day during the year that we open our farm to the public. It's a day to step back in time to the 1930s, during a time of no cell phones, no TVs, no fast food restaurants, no Wal-Mart- a time where life was slower paced, and the center was the family farm. We want this to be a learning experience for people of all ages, a time for the older generation to reminisce and share stories with the younger generation.”
Activities and exhibits around the farm property included: the Peinhardt Farm museum collection, historic buildings and artifacts collected from around the region, farm animals, picking sweet potatoes and cotton in the garden, woodcrafts in the east pasture, including free birdhouses for kids to build on the spot, hands-on activities for kids with traditional farm and frontier tools, honey bees and honey, blacksmith shop, broom making, wood carving, chair caning and basket weaving, quilting, open-fire cooking, weaving and cloth dyeing, pumpkin painting, grist mill, sorghum syrup making, using cane harvested from Peinhardt’s own field, live music and hay rides.
Rain in the morning held down the early crowd, but by lunchtime, parking areas were full, and a steady stream of visitors was coming through the gate.
On Saturday afternoon Tucker said, “Despite the rain that we had earlier today, I think our crowd has picked up some. We’ve had a great day so far, even though it’s been a little damp and a little wet. We’ve got our grist mill running, making our corn meal. We’ve got our molasses; they’re still cooking it. We’ve got birdhouses in the east pasture, open-fire cooking in the east pasture. We’ve got wagon rides that have picked up since the rain has quit, and we’ve got a field full of people that are down there picking up sweet potatoes, they’re picking cotton, they’re picking corn. They’re out with their mud boots, enjoying their day.”
Tucker isn’t just board president. She’s also the daughter of Eddie Peinhardt, so this is a family affair for her.
She said, “Our farm is unique in that I don’t think there’s another around that does the history like we do. There’s other farms around that have the petting animals and the other activities, but we want to make sure that we preserve the history, because that’s something that you just can’t find anymore.
“It’s a learning opportunity. You know, you see people walking around, and the older people’s generation–they’re reminiscing, and they can point out the different tools and they know what they are. And they have their family with them, and they’re sharing that. It’s also a learning experience for the younger generation that are with them. It’s fun to watch the people reminisce, and then people learning, too, because it’s a lot of hands-on demonstrating going on all over the farm, but also they’re learning, too.”
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