Preserved as a non-profit community venture, Collingwood Children’s Farm attracts hundreds of families from across Melbourne who seek to expose their children to a country-living experience. The farm offers free tractor and horse rides on the first Sunday of each month, so we parked nearby and joined in the fun.
There's parking close by, and from the crowd already at the farm, it's a popular place to visit.
A string of metal sculptures lead us over a wooden bridge from which we can see the market gardens down below.
On the second Saturday of each month, Collingwood Children's Farm hosts Farmers' Markets where they sell the produce they grow as well as providing space for other local producers.
We pay a small entrance fee ($16 for a family) and look over the map to work out which parts of the farm are the most interesting to us.
Collingwood Children’s Farm was started in 1838 as a way of encouraging city children to learn the ways of working on the land and with animals. Run as a non-profit organisation and supported with the help of many volunteers, the farm still provides a valuable service — not only to children, but to Melbourne as a whole. Collingwood Children’s Farm follows the principles of permaculture and biodynamic production in its daily operations.
We discover the chooks free-ranging around the picnic area, picking up scraps.
We wait for ten minutes for our turn on the hay-ride.
Sitting in the trailer on bales of hay, we are towed around the farm by the tractor. It's a great way to see the full length of the farm and gives an idea of where we want to go next.
A café is serving a popular barbecue lunch, but I'm intrigued by the tiered fence-garden that separates the tables from the walkway below.
We stop to smell the lemon-scented geraniums growing beside a shed.
We don't see a lot of geese during our travels, so this small flock keeps our attention for a while.
Myrtle and Jacob the pigs greet us with alacrity.
While I join the long queue for pony rides, the girls play around the stables. I find it really interesting to be able to watch the interactions of other families, especially within such an urban setting. I saw parents admonish their children for playing in the dirt, another forbid her daughter to climb a small hill lest she fall and scrape her knee, and many that let their children roam and play freely.
The girls peer into the stables at the horses and donkey that reside here full-time.
Brioni finds some loose bricks and starts to build a little house for her toy.
Delaney is taken aback by the interest shown by this huge boar.
When it's finally her turn, Delaney is delighted to be on top of the horse!
Aisha and Brioni both take their turns, but Calista decides she doesn't want to go for a ride.
Delaney and Calista enjoy patting the horse in a quiet moment.
When it's time to return to the bus, the girls race off across the unformed landscape — free-range play in the middle of the city!
I love having the bus nearby. We broke up our visit to Collingwood Children’s Farm by returning to the bus for some food. I’m also thrilled to discover that Melbourne is not only edgy and artistic, organic and natural, but family-friendly too in many ways, like this!
1 · nathalie · 6 March 2013, 11:25
Oh I’ve been wanting to visit here for a while now! I have booked it in for the 1st Sunday of May (as we will be camping the 1st Sunday of April)! Yesterday we went to Chesterfield farm which is only 15 minutes up the road and that was a lovely experience. We were able to catch one of the free range guinea pigs which Israel was ecstatic about! It has inspired me to find one or two to add to our family! It was much quieter than Collingwood, as the heat detracted lots of people They have a nursery which you can enter freely and cuddle the baby animals.
2 · Susie · 6 March 2013, 12:03
Make sure you check out Ceres if you get a chance. It’s an amazing place.
3 · Chika · 6 March 2013, 16:33
Your child’s home cut fringe – do u think she will be pleases by it retrospectively in years to come? My guess is that it gets your family more stares from passerbys and that’s what you relish, so your job is done.
4 · Melissa · 6 March 2013, 16:37
I’m sure all your kids will be overjoyed looking back through your blog at the amazing childhood they enjoyed. I second the recommendation to visit Ceres.
5 · erin · 6 March 2013, 20:25
i third the visit to Ceres
6 · Megan · 6 March 2013, 21:36
Usually I enjoy your posts, and this one I did to, though I was surprised by the judgement I detected (which I never usually detect when you are talking of others) when you were observing other parents and their children. I have a small child with cystic fibrosis, which means she should not play in dirt, sandpits etc, as there is bacteria there that will cause her irreparable lung damagIe if inhaled. Her condition means she can’t play with other children unless they are disinfected first, cannot share toys, etc, etc. I am often on the recieving end of judgemental parents glares at me, and it does hurt. Of course I would prefer my daughter could freely play, but they don’t know our situation. I am only bringing this up as these parents in your blog also have their own situations that we arn’t aware of. I think we should keep that in mind and keep an open heart. I don’t meet to offend you, this just struck a chord in me. X
7 · sola · 6 March 2013, 23:27
I’m just wondering, why don’t your children wear shoes? Farms aren’t very clean places what with animal feces. I would have thought that for safety the children would have needed to wear shoes. Whilst I enjoy going barefoot in the summer I wouldn’t do it on a farm because of bacteria and other hazards. My brother dropped a brick on his sandalled foot when he was little. It shattered his toes and he required surgery. Your daughter didnt even have that protection for her feet. If she had dropped that brick on her toes it would have caused a nasty injury and add to that possible ecoli from animal feces, she could have ended up a very sick little girl.
8 · Sarah · 7 March 2013, 00:00
Lauren, I grew up on a farm. Its pretty common practice to wear boots. Not sneakers, not sandals, and certainly not barefeet – boots. Preferrably with toes guards. It takes only one false step – and that horse will take off a foot in a minute. Also, walking in barefeet in animal dung is insane. The bacteria that is in manure is pretty epic.
I’m suprised you judged the city families! You look as out of place on a farm to me, as I’m sure the city families did to you. Riding a horse in barefeet doesn’t make you look free or easy going to a farm person like myself – it makes you look like you’ve never been on a farm. It would be like showing up at the didge festival in a three piece suit. LOL!
Sorry Lauren, I like reading your blog -but this blew my mind. Yikes!
9 · melissa · 7 March 2013, 08:44
It’s lovely that they loved the horses.
Did you know horses kick back and out to the side ……those lovely girls were right at the level
to receive a kick to the head…..
The quietest horse will startle and kick. I only mention this as a lot of city people dont understand this and get hurt when they start to embrace adventures. Always let the horse know you are there and pay attention to the ears. How did you cope with the manure …mine always manage to step in chook shit ………
10 · Sian · 7 March 2013, 10:58
Shame you didn’t pop into Lentil As Anything next door for your lunch instead – I think you would have enjoyed it :)
11 · Yeshe · 7 March 2013, 20:17
hehehe, I love the one comment that says don’t be judgmental and the three that are judgmental of you! My daughter grew up in the bush wearing no sneakers, no shoes surrounded by poo! She’s just fine. I can understand parents who are aware of physical or medical reasons, and that’s cool, but I also see so many parents simply control their children’s behaviour in public so that aren’t frowned upon by others. What kind of life is that for a child? Sit still, don’t play with anything, just watch and don’t talk! Sounds like my mothers upbringing as a baby boomer! And very boring.
I only came to comment and say you have made me long to be in Melbourne again.
12 · Jodie · 7 March 2013, 21:09
Yeah and while we’re at fancy letting your child sniff a geranium a bee might be attracted to it and sting her in the eye and then she might never see again and fancy letting them stand on a plastic chair, those things are notorious for a leg letting go, they might have fallen down and gotten necrotising fasciitis.
Please people time to get down off your high horses lest you fall off.
Do you all seriously have nothing better to do than critique a young child’s haircut and worry about children getting shit on their feet????
Lauren every time I read your blog I think what an amazingly rich experience you are giving your children, one that very few children will ever have the opportunity to experience, that among the tragedy and obviously difficult times you have all faced your girls will also have such amazing happy memories to take with them. Don’t ever listen to those with such small minds when your world is so much more. xx
13 · Nia · 8 March 2013, 00:22
Only in the Western world would people romanticize children growing up surrounded by poo. People the world over recognise the severity of illnesses related to faeces. We are a very privileged society if we think this is not a serious matter.
Lauren, I too was upset by your observations of the other parents, in this post. All parents are doing the best they can. Surely you know that everyone has different value systems, and that difference is okay. You are not a better mother than the other parents who were disallowing their children to explore the way that you let yours. It’s very disconcerting to read you standing back and judging them, as part of the reason that I started reading your blog is because you promote acceptance of difference. I have noticed this trend in a bit of your writing on your FB page also (‘blue jeans/brick house women gossiping) and think it’s actually pretty mean-spirited.
14 · Sarah · 8 March 2013, 00:26
Jodie and Yeshe, there is a huge difference between giving children the space to be children and putting them in a dangerous situation. They aren’t my kids, so whatever she’d like to do to them is fine, but as someone with a great deal of experience in a rural farm setting, I was immediately concerned. God only knows what they could step on in that straw.
I never said they shouldn’t play or explore. I said they should wear shoes on a working farm. I cannot believe suggesting children have foot protection on is akin to saying that kids should sit down and shut up. I apologize for giving advice. Seemed like common sense to me.
15 · lily boot · 8 March 2013, 11:41
I find the lovely record you keep of your adventures with your sweet girls a great read Lauren. I also agree with Sarah – having grown up on family farms and last year, writing a paper on farm safety for children, there’s nothing controlling or unpleasantly old fashioned about following basic safety measures in a work environment. Every environment has it’s pros and cons, and I think my role as a parent is to allow my child to explore and enjoy each different place we visit but it’s also my role to be aware of what’s appropriate and what isn’t. Do I make my child wear shoes in our back garden – of course not. Do I make her wear closed shoes in the chicken run and on bushwalks – always. Wearing shoes on a working farm is a basic safety measure – there are animals, machinery, sharp things (oh those broken bricks), animals that don’t like being stood on, and as Sarah mentions, lots of poo. Anyone who has a basic knowledge of public health knows that putting a healthy (not neurotic, just healthy) barrier between poo and humans is partly responsible for the huge improvements we have experienced in public health over the last 100 years. I have never used an antibacterial wipe in my life. I don’t buy into the whole obsessively clean culture presented in mainstream media. I let my daughter explore and do things by herself because like you, I think this is really important – she also sniffs as many flowers as she wants and we all stand on chairs regularly – to compare basic safety habits in a work environment to smelling flowers and standing on chairs is a bit childish. But I also appreciate that sometimes we need to adhere to particular standards when appropriate and shoes in certain environments (such as farms) is one of these. I witnessed a child have her toes crushed on an escalator in a shopping centre because she was barefoot. It was horrific.
16 · Leisa · 8 March 2013, 13:53
I remember my grandparents telling me about growing up barefoot on the farm. I used to love the story about bringing the cows in for milking on a frosty winter morning and my grandparents would stand in freshly produced cow pats to warm up their frosty bare feet. How times have changed! :)
17 · Yeshe · 9 March 2013, 17:40
“I cannot believe suggesting children have foot protection on is akin to saying that kids should sit down and shut up.”
I didn’t think that at all Sarah :) I was more talking about the critiquing of Laurens’ observations on parents not allowing their children to explore.
And yes your advice was very sensible, but seeing as it was a short visit to a “farm” geared towards the general public with well fenced area’s and paved walkways I can’t see that it’s such a disgrace to have inadequate footware.
18 · Sola · 9 March 2013, 22:24
Yeshe, I know you didn’t address me but my point was mainly about Aisha playing with the housebricks and having bare feet.
I don’t have any problems with kids running about the garden in bare feet. I do it, my kids do it and other than filthy feet and the occasional thorn removal (ouch!), it’s fine. However little Aisha was playing with housebricks. If she had dropped one of those on her toes it would have required a trip to hospital. It is something that is completely avoidable by either telling Aisha to wear shoes, or telling her to stay away from the bricks and explaining why. She seems a bright little girl and I’m sure once it is explained to her she would understand the precautions.
Taking precautions does not negate ‘free range parenting’. If anything it enables the children to enjoy their upbringing even more. No child enjoys being hurt and there is a reason why most parents take precautions; it is because we can see things happening that children cannot.
Aisha probably didn’t even consider what might happen if she dropped the brick on her foot. To her it was just a fun game. A few precautions like insisting on wearing shoes at appropriate times ensure that nobody gets hurt.
19 · Junebug · 11 March 2013, 11:50
So you have a right to judge the parenting styles of others now? I’m not liking the tone in this post at all. To each their own, but letting those girls run around with no protection for their feet on a farm is neglectful. I’m surprised no one said anything to you.