Pumpkins!

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.

I couldn't get a good picture of the sand hill because the sun was in front of me. But this was new and DJ's favorite.  He spent a lot of time climbing, sliding, climbing again.  We may, or may not, have come home with some of the sand in his boots.

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.