‘Willkommen’ Farm Visitors

Joanmarie Weiss has a true love of agriculture and a heart for teaching. Thanks to the agritourism enterprise on her family’s century farm outside Frankenmuth, Michigan, southeast of Saginaw, she gets to combine both passions. 

Known as Little Bavaria, Frankenmuth is a popular tourist destination. The town abounds with German architecture, and restaurants serve traditional Bavarian foods, such as sausages and pretzels, alongside locally brewed and traditional German beers. 

Visitors can explore Frankenmuth from a horse-drawn carriage ride, or a riverboat cruise on the Cass River, which passes under a wooden covered bridge and past the Frankenmuth Woolen Mill, Star of the West Milling Company, and the Marv Herzog Hotel. The lodging is named after the internationally known polka band leader and native son. 

Another favorite activity is visiting Weiss Centennial Farm, now in the care of fifth-generation farmers Joanmarie and her husband, Roger. They have three adult children: Margie, who works with them on the farm; Scott; and Lydia. Roger’s great-great-grandfather Johann Weiss purchased the land from the U.S. government in 1853. 

“If a man walks into the chamber of commerce in Frankenmuth and says, ‘My wife wants to go to the Christmas store again today, what can I do?’ they send him our way for a tour,” Joanmarie says. In the fall, Weiss Centennial Farm is busy seven days a week with their 5-acre corn maze. The farm also hosts culinary adventure tours for schools and other groups

Work Smarter, Not Harder 

The Weisses milk 60 cows; in 2012 they invested in a robotic milker, one of the first in the state. “To some, we’re lazy,” Roger says with a laugh. “But I milk cows to make a living; I don’t live to milk my cows. I’ve spent my whole life minimizing chores on this place.” 

Joanmarie says the cows are less stressed now. “It used to be at 6 a.m. we’d say, ‘Come on ladies, get up, time to milk.’ Maybe 40% of them were ready to go, but the rest were like, ‘Leave me alone.’ It took almost an hour to work through them all, and they had to stand there without water or feed. So this really is a better system for the cow.” 

Each cow has a tag that is scanned when she walks into the robot. Her information is uploaded, and she is fed based on her individual needs. “Margie is great with technology,” Joanmarie says. “She’s been in Germany, and we’ve called her and asked what was going on, and she looked at the data on her phone and told us what we needed to do.” 

Instead of selling heifers each year, the Weisses retain them and sell cows on their third or fourth lactation, which another farm can milk. “Margie was born to nurture a cow and just get it to its best potential,” Joanmarie says. “She’s increased our milk production by half. It’s just amazing what she’s been able to do with the herd.”

New Use for an Old House 

At the end of the Weisses’ driveway, Oma’s Heritage Haus welcomes visitors. Originally this traditional farmhouse was the Altsitz, the German word for a property share reserved by a farmer in retirement. “The grandparents would live here, and the farming child would raise their family next door in the big house. It worked out great for everyone,” Joanmarie explains. “This area is homey. It feels friendly to people.” 

Today, school field trips, clubs, families, churches, and circles of friends gather in the Heritage Haus for baking and cooking adventures, which Joanmarie leads. The two-hour classes include gingerbread house construction, chocolate’s sweet story, Old World foods, cheese tray-making, Michigan fruits and veggies, and pretzels’ twisted tale. During the lesson Joanmarie ties in stories of how farmers grow wheat for flour and beets for sugar, and how dairy farmers produce milk for the recipes. 

One group has been coming for eight years. One week a month a nonprofit in Saginaw that works with developmentally disabled adults brings 10 clients per day. Joanmarie leads them on custom baking adventures. 

“We do hands-on measuring of ingredients: a half cup of this, a tablespoon of that. And I’ll ask them how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon,” she says. “A couple of months ago one guy remembered it was three, and we were all so excited!” 

Joanmarie, who had no experience working with differently abled adults, says she is happy to have gotten to know them. “They’ve become very good friends and are some of the best people God put on this earth,” she says.

Field Tripping 

When I visited Weiss Centennial Farm this year, I tagged along with a fourth-grade field trip from a nearby school. First we went into Oma’s Heritage Haus, where Joanmarie placed a container of dough at each table and demonstrated how to roll and twist the perfect pretzel. As the kids got to work, she talked about growing wheat and how the flour used in the pretzels was milled in Frankenmuth. 

The kids were impressed when she told them that flour milled there is also used to make McDonald’s ice cream cones and Goldfish crackers. They’ll think of that tidbit every time they enjoy one of those treats. 

Once the kids turned all the dough into pretzels and placed them on baking sheets, we toured the dairy farm. We learned about what the cows eat; saw the calves up close (and got a big laugh at the farm’s dog locked up in a calf pen for the duration of the tour); observed the milking robot in action; and learned how the milk is stored and transported. 

After the tour a volunteer led an educational session about wheat. Each kid got a stalk of wheat, examined it, and counted the kernels as they learned about how it is grown and some of the ways it is used. 

Then we went back to the Heritage Haus, where Joanmarie had placed plates of still-warm pretzels on the tables. They were without a doubt the best pretzels I had ever eaten. The kids seemed to agree: They gobbled up the treats very quickly. 

The three-part activity tour kept the kids interested, and taught them lessons about agriculture without them realizing they were learning. Even though this is a relatively rural part of Michigan, only two hands went up when Joanmarie asked the students how many lived on farms. Some kids had never seen a cow up close, so observing one step into the milker and watching the liquid flow through the tubes and into the storage tank reinforced that’s where the milk they drink comes from. 

Depending on the time of year, the farm gets two to three field trips a week, Joanmarie says, adding she’d like to grow that to five per week throughout the school year. 

This fall, kids touring the corn maze make their own butter to go on fresh-baked corn muffins while learning about the history of corn. In November and December, the lesson focuses on spices from around the world. Youngsters make gingerbread houses and molasses cookies. 

Learn More

Joanmarie encourages farmers to host tour groups and welcomes anyone with questions about getting started to contact her at 989/652-8748. “I’d love for even one person to call and say, ‘How can I do what you’re doing? I have an extra house too.’”