Pumpkin Patch 2014

I am lucky to live in a place with so many farms.

There is a wide variety here; some cater very strongly to agritourists (that's a real word!) with playgrounds and animal activities and well-organized U-pick seasons.

Others are clearly more interested in the actual business of growing and selling food, with haybales rather than play structures and open pens of questionably friendly goats instead of well-stocked petting zoos.

View from the carrier.  I know it's blurry but look at that face.

Some are good for apples, some for strawberries.  Some grow the most beautiful flowers and others sell grass-fed beef and locally-milled wheat.  One grumpy old man won't open his storefront to save his life but if you ask he'll pit your cherries for you.  I don't choose which ones to go to over others because, why?

Where did Gray learn that this is what a smile looks like?

 I go to all of them.

Oh right

My favorites happen to be a pair that are within close range of each other, Lone Pine Farm and Thistledown Farm.  Lone Pine is an agritourist joint and it does its business well.

Their Halloween festivities are particularly well-done, with hayrides and corn mazes and caramel apples and a haybale maze for the kiddies.

This is the kiddie pumpkin patch.  The bigger one was squashy with mud and vines and overgrown with mammoth dying sunflowers that bent over like they were trying to get a better look at you.  I was good with the pumpkins-on-the-lawn type of patch.

Thistledown is a bit more down to earth, but they're flush with homegrown food and they'll take you on a hayride if you ask.  Also they have a corn maze from which you may never emerge.

 Halloween is more fun with kids.

Food is more fun with farms.