Pumpkin Patch Visit

This morning we took our annual trip out to Brown’s for a fun autumn morning at the pumpkin patch.  I’m not sure exactly when we began coming here but I know our two little girls were very small at the time.  It’s been a good number of years now since our family was that young and we looked like most of the other families around.

We arrived eager to make our way out to the field.  Pumpkins seem to have done OK this year again.  It has been near impossible to even come up with a can of pumpkin until recently… I was very glad that I had some still in my freezer.

Lindsay helped Nathan, Tristan debates which one to choose and Haley is more careful of the mud than a few of the others.

Each child found the perfect little spooky.

Tristan tries to re-negotiate on his choice.

We had to stop and visit the ponies and sheep.  They seemed either very friendly or else ready to eat. 

And it was a perfect morning to go through the corn maze.  The fog we had seen on our drive out to the country had lifted and the sky was beautiful.

We examined the corn stalks, sticks, rocks, and the occasional morning glory still winding itself up the stalks.

The kids enjoyed the straw maze through a shed.  Nathan was so funny in his “hiding spot” just inside the entrance.  Each time he went in there to hide he made sure to carefully cover and “hide” his feet by bending down  and getting the straw piled over them with his hands. 

Peeking out at me from the window of the shed are Kaitlyn and Tristan.

How tall this fall???  We run the whole gamut with children who are 3 1/2, 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 feet tall.

Also children who like whole numbers at 3 feet and 5 feet.

Pretty fall farm scenes filled with pumpkins and gourds.

While Rick and I take turns to pick out our jack-o-lantern pumpkin our young children play in the little wooden houses on display.  It’s fun for our older ones to remember  enjoying these houses when they were little too.

We loved the old metal dishes in one of the houses.  And I thought Lindsay looked cute out there tapping on an old wooden barrel. 

Rick and I each picked out a large pumpkin to take home before heading into the roadside stand to pick out some fresh produce and pay.

Hungry for a picnic as the day warms up a little bit, Nathan gets a ride in the wagon emptied of its pumpkins and refilled with a cooler.

We found our way to a picnic table out behind a barn near an autumn display. 

French bread sandwiches with ham, carrots, pickles, vegi straws and cowboy cookies with milk were on the menu.  Then Rick and the older girls took the small car back into the city where they will rehearse for the rest of the daylight hours.  Opening Night for the musical is less than 2 weeks away and they pretty much live and breathe this production right now.  The rest of us took our time finishing up our food and packing up to go home.

Nathan will NOT sit still for anything but found a very pretty little spot to finish up his cookie.

Tristan and Kaitlyn had to catch Scruffles upon our arrival home when she scurried out the door.  We unloaded all of our pumpkins to decorate our front porch.  A couple will be carved.  The rest will be roasted and put away for pies, muffins, soup and anything else I can think of.

Three of my cuties on the porch.     Along with our seven pumpkins we purchased a purple onion, green peppers, green beans, a turnip, butternut squash, red potatoes, cucumber and sweet potatoes.  We also found a stray apple under the picnic table near a whole bunch of squashed ones. 

And they reduced the prices on their jarred goods so we decided to try apple butter barbeque sauce as well as some pumpkin butter.  It’s good to try something new.  We are excited to have some harvest soup later this week as well as some sweet potato fries and some good crunchies on our sandwiches at lunch time.  And how about pumpkin butter on fresh hot rolls or some barbeque sauce on a pork loin for Sunday dinner along with crunchy green beans and a pie to finish it off?  Roasting pumpkin will warm the house up too.  This is our last trip out to the farm for produce this year and the pumpkin will be the last thing I put away for winter as the harvest season comes to a close.  I love this time of year.