{"id":3406,"date":"2026-11-06T18:22:06","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T17:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/a-spreewald-farmstead-just-as-it-once-was\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T13:54:01","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:54:01","slug":"a-spreewald-farmstead-just-as-it-once-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/a-spreewald-farmstead-just-as-it-once-was\/","title":{"rendered":"A Spreewald farmstead just as it once was"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jens M\u00f6bert, a resident of Burger, recalls an old photo from 1920, taken from the Burger church tower: \u201cIt shows our current living environment in a completely different light. There were smoky cottages, most of them still thatched, barns, and draw wells\u2014some with dovecotes; that\u2019s the kind of thing I wanted to bring back to life. Our house dates back to 1774, and we\u2019ve been extensively renovating it since 1996. Living in a historic setting, yet with all the modern conveniences\u2014that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been striving for for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jens M\u00f6bert and his wife Ilona, a potter, are no strangers to restoration: He is a restorer at the Branitz Castle and Park Foundation, and Ilona M\u00f6bert is known for recreating historical ceramics, such as the highly elaborate stove tiles in the Annemarie Schulz House at the Bismarck Tower in Burg. It is thanks to Jens M\u00f6bert that barns and stables\u2014which had actually been approved for demolition\u2014did not disappear after all, but instead found a new purpose, at least in part. One barn was transformed into the now-famous gallery house, typical of the Spreewald region. Hardly any tourist passes by without taking a photo, especially since Ilona M\u00f6bert has created an almost fairy-tale-like atmosphere with climbing flowers.  Jens M\u00f6bert: \u201cI found the front door in the bulky trash, and I was able to roof the house with hand-painted plain tiles from a demolished house in Horno. The only thing I couldn\u2019t find were old window frames, but I was able to rebuild them based on old designs\u2014which you can\u2019t tell just by looking at the windows today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last additions this year\u2014which were once part of an old farmstead\u2014were a dovecote and a draw well. The dovecote is \u201cready for occupancy,\u201d but the M\u00f6berts want to leave it up to nature to decide who moves in. Jackdaws and bats have been permanent residents on the gable of the gallery house for years.<\/p>\n

The latest addition is a draw well, which was completed just in time for the cold season. \u201cWe already have a swing-arm pump\u2014a technological advancement in its day\u2014but it\u2019s highly susceptible to freezing. It certainly wasn\u2019t easy back then to provide water for both animals and people when the pump was frozen,\u201d says Jens M\u00f6bert. A hand-drawn well is much less susceptible to frost, but requires a bit more physical effort. Thanks to modern concrete rings, the new construction wasn\u2019t quite as complicated, but the total depth of three and a half meters still came as a surprise to the well builder. He had expected a much higher groundwater level. The greater depth also requires a longer drawbeam, so the structure protrudes noticeably from the historic building complex. <\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, thanks to our central household water supply, neither of these pumps is actually necessary, but they could\u2014though we hope it never comes to that\u2014be a valuable help in the event of a prolonged water outage. To me, they\u2019re simply part of an old farmstead,\u201d says M\u00f6bert, who is also a beekeeper, because for him, bees have naturally always been part of an old farmstead. The only modern concession is the silk chickens that the M\u00f6berts keep\u2014naturally, in an old chicken coop, though equipped with electronic \u201cpredator protection.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re very fond of animals\u2014and that\u2019s exactly why we don\u2019t want to leave our egg-layers at the mercy of foxes, raccoons, and the like,\u201d says Jens M\u00f6bert.<\/p>\n

He isn’t giving any hints (yet) about what he plans to do with the old beams and planks stored in the yard \u2026<\/p>\n

Peter Becker, November 7, 26<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jens M\u00f6bert, a resident of Burger, recalls an old photo from 1920, taken from the Burger church tower: \u201cIt shows our current living environment in a completely different light. There were smoky cottages, most of them still thatched, barns, and draw wells\u2014some with dovecotes; that\u2019s the kind of thing I wanted to bring back to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kb_optimizer_status":0,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","slim_seo":{"title":"A Spreewald farmstead just as it once was - Spreewald\u00addorf Lehde","description":"Jens M\u00f6bert, a resident of Burger, recalls an old photo from 1920, taken from the Burger church tower: \u201cIt shows our current living environment in a completely"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nicht-kategorisiert"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1,"label":"Nicht kategorisiert"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/peterbecker@110925-6254-1024x769-cfb4tt.jpg",1024,769,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"sven-hofmann","author_link":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/author\/fad647f9b8fe3e7cfe8c0d3f5ff01100\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":1,"name":"Nicht kategorisiert","slug":"nicht-kategorisiert","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":297,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":297,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Nicht kategorisiert","category_nicename":"nicht-kategorisiert","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3408,"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/3408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreewald-dorf-lehde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}