A new season of the program Boer Zoekt Vrouw started on Sunday. Among the six farmers we find two Brabanders this year. Who are they, where do they come from and what are they looking for in a new partner?
In the first episode we met farmer Martijn and farmer Deedry.
Martin Smets
Martijn, 47, has a dairy farm in Haghorst. He lives there with his 140 dairy cows, some young cattle and his children. His 17-year-old daughter lives with him (and cooks for her father almost every day), his sons of 12 and 16 are there half the time. Martijn is, according to himself, a real people person and apparently also a family man: his father comes to help out on the farm every day. He recently bought a milking machine so that he can be with his children more often.
Farmer Martijn Smets (Photo: Linelle Deunk)
What is still missing is a woman in his life. Martijn got divorced ten years ago and since then he has become ‘a different person’. He is more sensitive than he was then: “My feeling always wins. That’s where your happiness lies. That’s not always the best choice, but that’s the next problem.” He is looking for a woman to discuss everything with. “If you are an open book, you also get much closer to each other. Otherwise it remains superficial.”
Martijn has dated a few times over the years, but it often got stuck with women who had no understanding of agricultural life. “Then the door closes for me.”
When the storm breaks in Haghorst, presenter Yvon Jaspers wants to know if passion is also something he needs in a woman. Martijn: “Yes, I need to be shaken awake. That’s better for me.”
Deedry Heijmans
The 31-year-old Deedry has a horse farm in Den Dungen. She also breeds horses, but mainly raises young horses for their owners. That takes about three years, after which the horses leave Den Dungen again. She currently has over 100 of them running around. She works with them all by herself, because staff or other help is not needed. Deedry lives on the parental property, in an apartment next to her parental home.
Farmer Deedry Heijmans (Photo: Linelle Deunk)
She never had a real relationship. She had a few ‘flings’, but that didn’t work out. It didn’t work out with men she got talking to in the pub either. “They ask me about my job, usually thinking I’m a hairdresser or do something with nails. Well, I do the complete opposite! So I just end it.”
She herself thinks that her insecurity, which she would like to get rid of, plays a big role. “I think men want a woman who leaves home in the morning and comes home around four, and who doesn’t smell like horse, they much prefer that, don’t they?”, she says. Deedry finds it hard to imagine that someone sees her and thinks: ‘what a nice woman’.
What kind of man is she looking for? She finds it difficult to say, she has never really thought about it. When it comes to horses, she knows what she wants. “I like to see a correct foal, with a good front”, she says as they walk around the yard. Is she also looking for such a ‘good front’ in a man, Yvon Jaspers wants to know. “I really don’t know, it’s not like I have a list of requirements.”
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