Sold out and closed for the season...

We had a tremendous turnout during October, and are so amazed by the support of our community! Thank you to all who came and enjoyed. We will definitely do this again next year, and yes, we will plant more pumpkins! We weren't sure what to expect, but we sold out of good pumpkins a week before we closed! So thanks to the Lattin Farm in Fallon, we were able to order some pumpkins from them to have enough for our last week. We again sold out of those by the end of Nevada Day, one of our busiest days! Here is the field pretty picked over.

And a special thanks to friends who helped work many hours to make it GREAT!

Jacob

Kalynn and Janelle

Connie

...and a few not pictured, Kelli and Summer - you guys are awesome! Of course my husband who did a ton of work behind the scenes, and our kids who were very hard working, helpful, and patient with our busy schedule!

So see you next year, and stay tuned for occasional farm updates!

We're Open!

We officially opened on Friday October 1st, but hosted a preview day for friends and family on Thursday.  We have had a great first few days, and everyone who has come has had a great time and made very positive comments! We hosted a field trip on Friday and it went really well. I am so happy when I see kids having a good time, and parents with smiles on their faces.  Thanks to all who helped us get this going!

Here is a little taste of some of the features and activities of our pumpkin patch.

Come on in!

A hay ride around the pumpkin patch

Dress up and coloring in the Art Barn

We have free face (and arm) painting on Saturdays from 11am-2pm

                                                                        by Summer Swanson

Sister in law Carrie on left and owner Natalie on right

Pumpkin prices vary by size

Customers enjoy being able to go out to the field to pick their own pumpkins right off the vine!

Kids love the corn play box!

Three of our four sons running the admission booth

Funny photo boards near the art barn

Shooting beans at carved pumpkins with sling shots!

Kids hay maze

A classic 1951 Ford 8-N

This way!

Lassoing activity

Feeding goats 

Come play in a teepee!

Harvest

Most of our pumpkins are ready! They vary in size and range from $1- $8.
Here's the kids picking some out for display in the barnyard and to get the bigger ones out of the "little pumpkin" section. Since the field is set up so you can pick your own off the vine, we wanted to keep the sizes in each section accurate with the pricing. The varieties we have this year are Small Sugar and Connecticut Field pumpkins. We are so excited that our patch is so full of beautiful pumpkins!

New additions...

 Just this week we got some new baby animals!

They are two kittens named Gadget and Dora

and two pigs named Rosy and Violet

Welcome to the farm little ones!

Pollination!

The pumpkin patch is full of flowers!

We have been seeing a lot of this:

and a lot of these!

I hope we get enough pumpkins... our "goal" is 2500.

Thanks to Daron's busy bees who are helping every day. (and hopefully making some sweeeet honey!)

One month...

Here is our pumpkin field exactly one month after being planted! Aside from a few annoying squirrels who were digging up seeds and eating them (we set up a trap to take care of that problem), most of the seeds germinated! I have had to thin them down so that they are not crowded. The plants are so healthy and beautiful. We will keep praying for them to grow well!

Pumpkin farmers!

We can actually say we're farmers since now we have planted almost an acre of one kind of crop - pumpkins! It was a lot of work, but the whole family got involved, and a few friends. We are so excited to be growing pumpkins this year - the whole reason to open our pumpkin patch. We'll keep you posted on their progress.

"farmer" Cameron

First we had to set up a drip line on the whole field

Drip, drip.

Then we planted the seeds - 9 per grouping, 30 groups per row, 20 rows total. We figured about 5,400 seeds all planted by hand!

We teamed up - one would dig holes and the other to plant the seeds.

It took 10 of us about 6 hours to complete the whole planting process! Our kids worked so hard, I was really proud of them!

Our little farm

This blog was created to share pictures and information about our farm in Sparks NV. We host field trips, and are opening a pumpkin patch in October 2010! We are really excited about this business venture...or should I say adventure! Here are some pictures of the farm and some of the animals we have.

Piper - a burrow

Kane - a one month old "cak" (cross between a yak and a cow!) and her yak mother named Sugar in the background

Han - a very friendly Jersey cow that we hand raised.

Perseus and Poseidon - Nigerian dwarf goats.

Pilgrim- our super friendly llama who needs help with his teeth!

A fun hay ride with friends.

The beautiful view of Mt Rose.

Our backyard - a big grassy area perfect for picnics!

Some of our goats in one of the animal pens. Our goats are very friendly and will eat out of your hand.

Chicken coop and barn in the back.