The guardian
Meeting with Karin Salamon from the Heute-Mühle farm
The morning dew is just slipping off the blades of grass, chickens are clucking happily in the garden and the sun is making the flowers and butterflies in the farm garden glow. The Schmallenberg Altstadt with the neo-Romanesque church St. Alexander is located directly above the spacious farm. Everything is immaculately maintained and well thought out. You can see straight away how much work and attention to detail has gone into the grounds. Everyone in Karin Salamon's family lends a hand so that other families can fully enjoy their vacation. With her open and loving manner, the hostess gently steers the action in the background.
"I have that vacation feeling on the farm every day. It just makes me happy when I see the children's eyes light up."
Create free spaces
She wants to create space for children to develop their own play. She also offers activities such as pizza baking or pony rides, but the whole site is an invitation to be active Werden or simply to take it easy: a large garden with a playground and fire pit, a raft on the river, idyllic resting places under fruit trees and a play barn and play area for rainy days. Lenneidyllic resting places under fruit trees and a play barn and play cellar for rainy days. "It's all here. Many families spend their entire vacation here and only move around the farm. They can go hiking and cycling right from the front door or they can be up in three minutes to browse the lovely shops. Schmallenbergto stroll through the lovely stores and enjoy an ice cream." Time together and time for yourself - everyone can do what they like here.
Karin Salamon was born on the farm. Her great-grandfather bought Alte Mühle in 1860. It was first mentioned in documents around 1300. When the weir broke in 1960 and no more water came through the mill race to the mill, her grandfather decided to continue the small farm. In 1974, her parents built a guesthouse with nine guest rooms, followed by the conversion of the barn into five vacation apartments in 1992, and another one was added in 2004 when she took over the business. All of them are timelessly beautiful and comfortably furnished. As a trained nursery school teacher, Karin Salamon wanted to combine hospitality with her own family life, which was still young at the time, and specialized entirely in families as guests when she joined Schmallenberger Kinderland. Today, she is the chairwoman of the cooperation, which brings together 27 vacation farms with 3 to 5-star apartments and spacious family rooms. Karin Salamon finds the exchange and the joint calendar of activities great: "When I offer a family tour through Schmallenberg I offer a family tour, guests from the other farms can also come along and mine can watch the cows being milked in the barn. And if a family likes another farm's offer better and books their next vacation there, that's perfectly fine. There is no competition between us, Sondern a great sense of togetherness."
Behind the farm, we hear joyful shouting. Farmer Gerd, the father of Karin Salamon, is pulling a large cloth, the flying carpet, with his tractor, and the children are sitting on it, cheering loudly. Klaus-Peter and I are also keen to go for a ride. We are already in the mood for a vacation. "Yes, that's exactly what I like," says the hostess. "I have that vacation feeling on the farm every day. It just makes me happy when I see the children's eyes light up."
The sun is slowly moving west, the fire is already blazing in the garden. Children of all ages pick up the carved wooden sticks and wrap the dough around the tip or stick a sieve on top to make popcorn from corn kernels over the embers. We too are enchanted - by the place and the people. It's no wonder that some children cry when they say goodbye and can hardly wait to come back. We'll be back too, for sure. Then we can be children again.
Accompany our storytellers on their encounters in the Schmallenberg Sauerland and the vacation region Eslohe and discover even more photos, videos and impressions of our region in the multimedia travel documentary.
