It’s pumpkin season!  Our homeschool group went back to the local family
farm that we visited in the spring. DJ and the other kids planted a
pumpkin seed so today was the day to go back and harvest our crop. And
grandma Jacque was able to come along as well. Isn’t this a great
picture of DJ and her?

We started the day at the corn maze. With 14 kids under the age of 10,
we wisely chose the half mile maze instead of the 4 mile maze. Even in
half a mile, some children were misplaced for a short time. 😐 Ahem.

Then we moved on to Kid Land, which is a fun, eclectic group of activities.

Giant tires to climb.

A small miniature golf course.

A green house converted to a hay maze.

A huge sand hill with slides to come down.

Then we moved onto the mining activity. This is the fourth time DJ has
done mining at this farm. In previous visits he mined for sea shells,
fossils and arrowheads. So this time we chose to mine for gems. This is
such a fun activity. DJ is given a large bag of “rough” which is mostly
small gravel with gems mixed in. He pours the rough into the tray and
shakes the tray in the flowing river to reveal the gems. It only takes a
few minutes but it’s fun and we got a nice bag of gems to take home.

We were then given a card that listed all the possible gems we could have found. It looks like we ended up with a lot of Quartz.

After mining and some more play, the kids all got a ride on the “cow
train”. If DJ had his way, he’d ride this over and over and over.

But he was happy to settle for a hay ride.

A hay ride to the pumpkin field!

Back in the spring, when the kids planted the pumpkin seeds, they all
wrote their names on sticks and the farmers posted them in the field to
mark our pumpkins.

DJ made some great pumpkin choices.

He loves his pumpkins!!

Happy fall everyone.