Old McDonald had a farm

In September 2020 class 2a from High School Slovenj Gradec visited Tourist farm Lešnik, which is on Legen, near Slovenj Gradec. We headed to the farm on Friday afternoon with our teachers, Alenka Kac Herkovič and Marjeta Uršič. We stayed overnight and slept on their famous [1]hayrack. The owners were very hospitable, and we immediately felt welcomed.

Before having fun, we had some work to do so we sorted into pairs and everybody was given a theme to work on. Our job was to take some pictures and write a report on the event. The beautiful environment put everybody in a good mood and motivated us to do the best job we could. After looking around the property and putting down our backpacks in the hayrack, we started working on our assignments. While other schoolmates were busy, Manca and I took some pictures of the farm and our classmates at work.

In the evening we went to the nearby forest and collected some wood for the campfire that we set up later. On our return we ate dinner prepared by the owner of the farm and the food was delicious. After finishing dinner, the scouts in the class set up the campfire and the rest of the class joined them. It was a bit cold, so we eagerly warmed up by the fire. We sang songs, baked some scout bread on sticks and enjoyed each other’s company. After an hour or two we scattered around the property. Some played table tennis or board games, some went upstairs, on the hayrack, where we slept, and some stayed by the campfire singing songs. A classmate was celebrating her birthday so at midnight we sang Happy birthday to her. After a few hours we all got rather sleepy and eventually we all went to bed. We got up quite early in the morning, at 8 o’clock and went to breakfast, still a bit lightheaded. After that we took a couple of photos together and enjoyed the last hours on the farm.

We think that this was a great experience for all of us. We had a lot of fun and now we got to know each other better and got a bit closer as a class. One could only hope to have more projects like this one.

[1] A hayrack (kozolec in Slovene) is a freestanding vertical drying rack typical of Slovenia.

Neža Vollmaier and Leoni Jošt decided to introduce the diversity of food in different parts of Slovenia. Check out their article Slovenian flavour.

Lea Glažar and Alja Pušnik were working on a poem about the origin of Slovenj Gradec. Check out their interpretation of the legend in the article The legend of Slovenj Gradec.

Vid Kavnik and Vid Slemenik worked on a presentation about judo. They were quite successful at the assignment because Vid K. has been training judo for a couple of years now and he helped them with the information needed.

Zal Krenker Pogorevc and Luka Pavlič were writing an article about the Venetian horse that is placed in the center of Slovenj Gradec.

Ana Vrečar and Jasmina Andrejc were interviewing the boys in our class. We heard some of the questions and they were quite funny. Check their artice Meet the boys.

Gaja Frece and Urška Jovič Penko decided to present the situation of the LGBTQ community in Slovenia.

Luka Permanšek and Aleša Založnik were working on the presentation of the musician Milan Kamnik.

Jani Smolar was writing about his father Adi Smolar, who is a well-known musician in Koroška.

Melanie Štumpfl and Mojca Krajnc did some looking up about the music festivals in Slovenia. Check out their article Music Festivals.

Neža Ferlinc and Lara Vujkovac wrote about Saint Elisabeth, her life and the legend. They also included some facts about the Church of St. Elisabeth.

Teachers Marjeta Uršič and Alenka Kac Herkovič were our mentors at this project. We are very grateful that we could share this experience with the two teachers that we all like. It was our pleasure that we had the chance to spend some time with them and got to know them a little bit better.

We are Manca Jeram and Mateja Bricman and we documented our stay at the farm Lešnik. We hope that the next generations will have as much fun as we had.