Peinhardt Farm Day

It’s been two years since the Peinhardt Living History Farm has welcomed guests to its west Cullman grounds. The COVID-19 pandemic scuttled plans for the annual outing, which offers authentic demonstrations and hands-on time with expert locals who preserve the farming practices of the past.

This year, though, Peinhardt Farm Day is returning in a big way, opening the historic 40-acre property for two consecutive days in October. Consider this year’s two day event —a change from the typical single-Saturday affair that Farm Day typically stages— as a doubled-up way to make up for lost time after the cancelations of the past two years.

Taking in the family-friendly event feels like a true step back in time: Farm Day recruits volunteers drawn from the ample supple of agriculturallys well-informed farmers and other Cullman County locals with a command of skills dating to farming’s early-industrial period, and they walk guests through a wide variety of practices that kept local agriculture alive and thriving in the early 20th Century.

The hands-on fall festival provides guests of all ages with insightful glimpses at what north Alabama farm life was like in the 1930s and 1940s.

“This time in history was chosen because of all the monumental changes occurring in agriculture — shifting from animal-drawn power to tractor and engine power,” the nonprofit explained in its announcement release. “Electricity was being installed in homes in north Alabama. Many changes were occurring, and the dedicated volunteers and Peinhardt family use their own experiences to teach the community using the beautiful working farm of Carl and Irene Peinhardt.”

Farm Day might sound like a history lesson, and it is —but it’s not a dryly unimaginative, academic one. The farm makes good on the “living history” part of its name, showcasing life and fully-functioning demonstrations of heritage skills like quilting, ginning cotton, milling lumber, making turpentine, and more. There’s always a pumpkin cart along with tons of activities for kids, including this year an old-timey sack race — plus live music and food vendors spread across the Peinhardt Farm grounds.

Peinhardt Farm Day will take place on Saturday, Oct. 15 and Sunday Oct. 16 from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. each day. Admission is $10 per person (guests ages 2 and under are admitted for free). The Farm is located at 1711 Talley Ho Street in Cullman, just east of the 308 Exit on Interstate 65.

Visit www.peinhardtfarm.com for more on this year’s Farm Day, as well as more information about the Peinhardt Living History Farm.