A trip to the Farm

Yesterday we FINALLY made it to the pumpkin patch.  It seems as though cheer has been taking up all our weekends so it was nice that we finally had a bye week.  This year I found a new farm to check out that I was really excited about.  Although it was much further away from us, it had a really fun looking maze. We started off feeding the farm animals.  Sadi liked feeding the goats.

Chase was a bit hesitant to turn his back to this Emu who he was sure was going to give him a peck.

They had a cute little corn maze for the little kids which included a mystery.  Someone stole Farmer Joe's apple pie, and the tracks would show who the culprit was.

The kids navigated the maze to find scratching posts that they would rub with a crayon to uncover the tracks of the animals that stole the pie.

They had a big barn full of all kinds of activities including a cute puppet show.  The kids loved the hay bale slides.

There were a few corn boxes (like sand boxes) to play in. 

We had fun at the pumpkin shooting.

 It was a slinging good time!  Sadi was actually a pretty good shot at this.

We were on the lookout for some of the wanted criminals in these parts...

We took some "corny" rides on the barrel train.

Chase especially loved jumping and rolling in this hay jump.  This kid had hay everywhere!

There were so many activities to do, that we missed out on some because the wind picked and it was threatening to rain.  It was pretty cute that there were so many things tied to books throughout the  farm.  Some of the animals had been named after book characters like the llamas, Gandolf and Saruman.  They even had a Charlotte's web climber with "Some Pig" woven in the web.

We tried our hands at lassoing bulls. 

These two pumpkin heads were having a blast.

We decided with the wind getting stronger and the clouds getting darker to head to the corn maze before it got to cold.  

Before we arrived at the farm we had read about the "crime" you could solve within the maze if you wanted to become a Farm Scene Investigator. Farmer Joe had been kidnapped and you needed to find all the clues to solve the mystery.  It's played just like the game of clue. We had read about all the suspects on the way to the farm, and we all had made predictions on who done it.  Armed with our secret clue books we were ready to solve the mystery.

It was off to get lost in the maze...

We had to navigate the maze to find 6 clue stations that would eliminate suspects, weapons, and locations.

With each station we eliminated more and more suspects.

We finally found all six stations and found out: Billy the Goat kidnapped the Farmer, with a stick, and hid him in the tool shed.  They all earned their F.S.I. badges.

It started to sprinkle a little but we were not getting out of there without a hay ride (Sadi really was not going to leave without doing this).  We piled on and tried to not get blown away.

The ride was stopped at the haunted Halloween trees where the "creature" lies that no one on the farm knew what it was or where it came from...whoooooo!

As much as there was still to do, it was just way to windy.  We had literally eaten dirt on the hay ride.  That dark in the distance...

it wasn't rain.  It was dust...it was time to pack it up, without a trip to the patch to pick a pumpkin.