Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Wow, It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a month since I wrote in this blog. What a month it’s been! Our son, Ryan, got married in Reno, NV, on August 1. That was a fun trip. Besides the beautiful wedding, we visited old Virginia City and gorgeous Lake Tahoe. Also, I finished up my chemo treatments yesterday. They started in March and were every other week. So now, they’re finished in time for the Pumpkin Patch season and hopefully I can keep up with Paul.
We’ve had a very wet and cool summer (my kind of weather), but unfortunately, its not the greatest for crops. About the middle of August, we finally hit a 90 degree day and we’ve had a fair amount of sunshine. This has really brought on the pumpkin crop, to Paul’s great relief. Looks like the crop will be good and we should have a nice variety of pumpkins, gourds and squash for our customers. Another crop that we weren’t planning on were the 20 lambs born this summer. Normally, our lambs come in February but someone got a little rambunctious this spring and we had lambs popping out everyday for awhile. Oh well, the kids will love seeing them with their mothers. Another unexpected event was the birth of another baby goat. Pumpkin was born last fall and he got a little sister, Petunia, this spring. After that the Billy Goat Pete got moved to the sheep field pronto.
We’re pretty excited about this fall. We have a nice line-up of entertainment for the weekends. Phyllis Howard will be back several times this year with her dulcimer and Bill Stumpf, our wonderful storyteller, will be back on two different Saturdays. We lined up a food vender for both Saturday and Sunday and may have a kettle corn concesson as well on a few days.
On October 17-18, we plan to host a pumpkin flinging festival. Paul has been in conctact with several area guys who are intrigued with the idea of a friendly little match-up of machines. It could get interesting. Our sons couldn’t resist missing this event and all three will be here. Every mother’s dream!
On the last three nights,Oct 29-31, we are going to run night hayrides from 6 to 9. They will run on the hour and hopefully, we’ll have some kid-friendly spooks in the woods to liven things up a bit.
We’ve also been adding some improvements. One big addition is the new road through the woods for the hayrides. It is much more gradual than the old road. which was too much of a thrill for Paul. The Frogtown Flinger is going to have some additions and we’re to have two much improved Slingers down in the farmyard. We’re going to put an old cooler out in the field with a target for the slingers. Another exciting development was the purchase of a 30′ x 30′ circus tent. All of our picnic tables should fit comfortably underneath it to provide shade for the sunny days and shelter for the drizzly days (let’s hope that there are not going to be too many of those). Yet to be accomplished, but in the works, are additonal lights, a water system for the shed and a hay mountain for the kids to climb on. We also hope to have more signs painted for various areas
The next two weeks are going to be extremely busy around the farm. Paul is working to hard to get the second crop hay in. Once we start working on the Patch , there won’t be time to make hay. We’re happy that most of our employees are coming back this fall. They did a good job for us last year and will know the ropes already. I still remember how befuddling the first day was last year. We were making it up as we went. Hopefully, September 19 this fall will much better.
Linda (Hanging on for the ride)
