GOSHEN — John Adam has always been drawn to the farm, and his wife, Cynthia, grew up on a farm. Despite economic hardships pushing them away from the farm early in their marriage, they returned there to raise their four children.

@Normal:Next week their family will be honored by the Elkhart County Agricultural Society as “Farm Family of the Year.”

“It’s a great honor,” said John Adam. “We’re strong, we’re close. That means a lot to us.”

Cynthia Adam said farming is a living, but it’s also a way to be together as a family. “It’s so we can spend time on the farm with a family,” she said.

Her husband said, “We’ve always said, ‘God, family, farm.’ Unfortunately sometimes something goes wrong and farm moves up a bit,” like last Christmas when the vacuum pump on their milking equipment went down.

They have four children who work with them, taking care of the 80 milk cows (plus more coming), the 85 acres they own and the 370 acres they farm, growing corn, soybeans and hay.

Faith, 11, the youngest, mowed nearby as her parents talked, while her teenaged brothers worked on equipment. Luke, 15, and Nick, 17, are Fairfield football players, something that’s cut into their contributions to the farm since the end of the Elkhart County 4-H Fair. Nate, 19, the oldest, is about to leave for college. “We’re going to notice him missing,” John Adam said.

John and Cynthia met through 4-H, sort of. He’d been born on a farm but moved to Wakarusa as a young child. He never was cut out for town life, though, so at age 12, he moved in with an aunt and uncle. He learned dairy and he learned a work ethic. He saved up and bought a Corvette.

In 1984, John Lawrence knew John Adam and knew of the boy’s car. He also knew that Cynthia, the 1983 fair queen, needed a ride in the fair parade, so he hooked the two of them up.

“When we got married I sold my Corvette, got four cows” and a rusty old pickup truck, said John.

From the four cows with which they started in 1986, they’ve grown their operations. In the drought of 1988, John started selling silage bagging equipment to supplement income.

That year got so bad that they had to sell off their Holstein cows, though they kept their heifers and used them to rebuild over the years. “You’ve got to re-set your dreams and goals,” John said.

When the kids started coming, that put a further brake on the operations. “It takes two to run a farm,” John said, so he worked elsewhere to support the family until Cynthia said to her husband, “I’m ready to raise the kids on the farm.”

It wasn’t an easy transition, but it’s one they don’t regret. They’ve even expanded to another breed of cows to appeal to their children.

“The kids like the Jerseys, and to keep them interested in the farm, we have Jerseys,” John said.

Eight years ago they added fall events with pumpkins and a corn maze, named after their farm: Knollbrook Farm. “We’ve got the corn maze and diversify a little bit and not have all our eggs in one basket,” Cynthia said.

The couple, as they grow their farm, are trying to set it up so the children have the choice of coming back to help run it if they desire — though their parents aren’t going to push them to do that.

It’s not an easy life, especially this year. Like most folks around here, the first cutting of hay was down a little, but it was early, so that was OK. The second cutting was down, too, but again, on pace to have at least one extra cutting this year. Then the drought hit.

“We’re buying extra corn for corn silage this year,” John said. Even so, at a time when some dairy farmers and livestock producers are having to sell off parts of their herds, “we bought a small herd of Jerseys. We’re crazy. The drought hits and we add cattle,” he said.

Still, it’s just like adding equipment — they used what it would’ve cost to pay someone to cut silage for them and bought the equipment to do it themselves this year — or selling silage equipment or adding the corn maze. “You have to look at this long term, how it’s going to affect the farm, how’s it going to affect the family,” John said.

They’re at the mercy of the weather, like all agriculture, and they’re at the mercy of market cycles. Still, even in a tough year like this, “We don’t have it near as bad as a lot of places. We’ve got to look at the positives, at least we have something to harvest,” John said.