Happy Thanksgiving!

From our family to yours we want to say THANKS for another great season! We are thankful for the farm, for our faith, our freedom, and our awesome community who has given us the chance to grow our business. A big thanks to all our employees too who helped to make it happen!

We are closed for the season, but you can like us on facebook to follow what's going on, such as new animals, crops for sale, etc.


We hope your holiday season is great, so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year too!

Opening Day!

It's October again, and that means - PUMPKIN PATCH TIME! We are open all month, with the exception of Sundays. Our hours are Monday - Thursday 10am - 3pm and Friday-Saturday 10am - 6pm.

Come check out our NEW attractions!
Every year we add a few more fun activities, but this year we went the extra mile and added four!
They include:
 a one acre kids corn maze

A pedal cart track

                         (picture coming soon!)


Our little garden play area

 

 

 

 

and "Charlottes Web" to climb!

 

 

We have tomatoes and corn for sale in our market, along with a variety of pumpkins and gourds. We also have farm honey and crafts for sale!

 

delicious farm fresh corn!

 

                                         You're never too old to play in the corn shed!

                                     Artist and friend Summer painting hands and faces

                                                         A mix of a cat and spiderman...

                                                Beautiful creations coming out of the Art Barn

Please look at the event calendar - we have a TON of FUN STUFF coming up!
We are sure you will enjoy your visit to our farm, and want to make it a memorable experience!

A Character with a Cause

We are taking on a fun character to be part of our pumpkin patch this year....it is Spookley the Square Pumpkin!  He is a character from a book (called Spookley the Square Pumpkin) and now a movie that is on Disney Jr.

Not only is he cute, but he promotes a good cause. October is National Bullying Prevention month, so it's a good time to raise awareness to children about bullying and the negative effects it has on everyone. Because Spookley is different since he is a square pumpkin, he is made fun of and feels bad about himself. Then he has the chance to prove himself and show that everyone is important, no matter what they look like!

The story is really cute, and we will be sharing it in our story times this season!  We will also be playing the movie in the art barn this season too.  The books and DVDs will be available to purchase in our market, and our corn maze will have a "Spookley hunt" in it as well!

Come check out Spookley!

The Emu Whisperer

We have two emus and they sure are funny birds!

Our son is about the same heighth as them and so maybe they don't feel threatened by him..... they let him stand by them, pet them and get up close and personal. My husband says they run away or try to chase him when HE is in their pen.

Maybe Kaleb is the emu whiperer...

                                                                staring contest

 

Hay Cutting and Veggie Harvest

Things around here are growing- the grass/alfalfa hay, the vegetables in our family garden and the hoop house, and of course, the pumpkins!

                                  the pumpkin vines start reaching out and growing together with the other rows.

                                 a little green pumpkin - we have lots of these all over in the patch!

                                      tomatoes, carrots and onions growing in the hoop house

                                 Cameron cutting the hay- it is definitely tall enough!

                                         This is the 2nd cutting this season.

                                     the cut hay is left for a few days to dry

                                         then is baled to store for later

                                                lots of "sweet heat" and "anaheim" peppers

                                         a head of cabbage from our garden - as big as our son's head!

                                  ...just about the size of  a bowling ball!

Pumpkin Planting Day 2012

June 9th was the big day! Eight hours and about 12,000 seeds is what it took to get the job done. We had about 8 helpers plus our family of 7 helping out. 

So what does this event entail?

*Months ahead - Collecting soil samples and submitting to the UNR Cooperative Extension for soil testing. This tells us the condition of the soil, and then we can add compost or other things as needed.

*Also months ahead - Plowing and disking and dragging the field multiple times to prep the soil. We also added some compost to some poorer soil areas.

*Seeds are ordered ahead of time. My favorite companies for seeds are Main street seed, Harris Seeds, and Johnny's seeds. We are trying out some varieties of gourds this year, in addition to 9 varieties of pumpkins!

some unique looking seeds - swan gourd seeds!

*57 rows of drip line (each row in the front field is about 110 ft long and back field rows are about 200 feet long!) We set up the drip line before planting day, so that our water source is ready to go. 

*We round up friends and our kids to team up and start planting at 8:00am

*All the seeds are planted by hand. 

What a sense of accomplishment to get them all in the ground, then watch them grow! It's so exciting!

This year it was super windy and chilly in the morning. Not very ideal to have dirt and dust blowing in your face while you are digging holes for seeds! We survived though and got the job done. 

A dirty face with a happy attitude! Love it!

Nesting

We found a nest in a wood pile in our back yard with our duck named Honey sitting on it! She's been there a week, so we should be seeing baby ducklings in a few more weeks. So cute!

We also set up a nest in the garage with a broody hen named Kyoger. She is sitting faithfully on some fertilized eggs and being a surrogate mother. We did this last year with her and she hatched out 3 chicks! We have 6 eggs under her this year.

Coming soon - turkey chicks this week and piglets next week!

Lots of chicks!

We have 30 new chicks and more on the way! There are two school groups that are incubating some of our eggs, and will bring the chicks back after they have hatched. We also have a broody hen who we are going to (hopefully) have hatch out some (hopefully) fertile eggs. Those chicks will be Rhode Island Reds and Silkie Cochins.
The chicks are so cute and grow so fast! We got mostly Buff Orpingtons and Golden Sexlink chicks, but decided to try two new breeds - Brahmas and Turkins. See the pictures below!

They started out in a bin in the house, and then at 3 weeks old moved to a pen in the garage.

                    Look at their cute little faces! They have some adult feathers and some chick fuzz!

 This is an interesting new kind called a Turkin or a "naked neck"! It looks like a Dr. Suess bird!

 A Black Jersey Giant chick

 A Buff Brahma

A white Brahma. So sweet and fuzzy! awwww!

We are definitely adding to our flock. We'll see how many eggs hatch out from the school incubator projects and our mother hen hatching project! We'll find out in about 3 weeks!

Easter photo shoot featuring our bunny...and some chicks!

Happy Spring! 

It is chick season again, and we got some cute new chicks! Also Easter is right around the corner.... so when my friend Michelle asked if she could feature some of our chicks and bunnies in her Easter photo shoot I agreed! She did some cute demos of our daughter and our bunny Ginger!

 The photo shoot event will take place on Saturday, March 17th at her home studio in Spanish Springs. She still has some openings if you are interested.  Here is flier with all her information.

 here's some darling pics that Michelle took with Ginger our bunny!

Also we are now booking spring events at the farm such as birthday parties and field trips! Call or email for more information.

530-8032

or

andelinfamilyfarm@gmail.com