Hi, welcome to my blog. I'm 27 and have an extremely active 18 month old boy, Mason. I've worked off and on full time and part time since Mason was born and am currently not working so I can be home with him.
This month Mason and I (and my mom) have been doing a tour of local pumpkin patches. First we visited Fordyce Farms in Salem. Small and family owned/operated. There's a store with an assortment of produce, coffee, gifts and the most wonderful pastries ever made. I tried a Raspberry scone-delish! Most definitely the best scone I have ever had. Fresh raspberries perfectly wrapped into a soft dough then baked to perfection create this mouth watering treat. It will make you kick your diet to the curb and go back and decide to buy the blackberry apple pie that was eyeing you as you came in, (or maybe that was just me). The pie was just as delicious by the way, crust was perfection! They also offer a oatmeal scone which is their best seller and was actually sold out when I was there. Besides all the food, there is a hay maze for young kids, and a big hay pyramid. The pyramid has tunnels in it (very dark inside) that lead to different areas, or you can just climb up from the outside-in the light. They also offer a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch or you can walk. Pumpkins were very reasonably priced and many great ones to pick from. On the weekends they also offer pony rides, and there were other fun small activities going on. Great place to visit!
Next we all headed to E.Z. Orchards in Salem. Much bigger place! They have a larger store year around that offers a variety of produce, unique fun gifts, pastas, beverages, etc. They also have a big assortment of OSU and UofO themed items, and fresh made in the store doughnuts. Outside the store was the Harvest Fest. It cost $7 per person to get in, 2 and under free. Once inside all the activities were free, but there was also food and drinks you could buy. This would be a fun place to take a family and spend the day. They offered a huge corn maze, pony rides, and many other activities.
The following Saturday we convinced grandma to go along with us to Bauman Farms! We got there at 10am and the fields were already filling up with cars, (they open at 9am). This place was HUGE and amazing! By far the best place we visited! There was so much to do and see that we didn't even do it all! HUGE farm store filled with food, candy, homemade fudge, fresh produce, fresh baked cookies, doughnuts and other amazing treats. They also had tons of holiday decor, plants and thousands of pumpkins!! When we first arrived my mom and I just looked around in awe not really sure which way to go. There were huge tunnel slides (way too scary for Mason), pedal cars on a track, rock climbing walls, hay mazes, dark mazes, train rides etc!! Good thing we looked at the map online before we headed out. Probably we should've printed it. They also had atms available which was super convenient for me! We played in the forts, went down a small (but still quite scary fast) slide, spent a long time in the petting zoo, and got real dirty at the playground! This would be a wonderful place to spend the day no matter how old someone is. We were there for 2 hours and didn't come close to doing or seeing everything, but Mason was very tired and it was time to change clothes and head home.
The weekend after that Mason, his dad and I went to Heiser Farms in Dayton. Actually it's out on Grande Island but it's a Dayton address if you were to look it up. This is a smaller family farm with lots to offer! Petting zoo, pony rides, hay maze, pedal tractors for toddlers, train rides, huge corn maze, small store with food and crafts, and on the weekends they have pumpkin cannons and helicopter rides. There is a charge for a few things, like the helicopter ride is $20, the pony ride is $3. They also have a huge pumpkin patch with a variety of different kinds of pumpkins and gourds. To go with it there are a few fun ways to get down to the pumpkin patch; tractor pulling a trailer, mules pulling a trailer and an old steam engine tractor pulling a trailer. Fun and a little different at this farm compared to the others. I will say their pumpkins were somewhat picked over by the 3rd wkend in October and on the weekends the price is 25 cents/lb while weekdays it's only 15 cents/lb. Still a great place to visit and almost everything was free so paying a little more for the pumpkin is fair.
Now tomorrow is Halloween so I guess our pumpkin patch tour has come to an end. Next year I'll most likely visit them all, (maybe not E.Z. orchards), and hopefully a few more. To end our fun tour Mason and I will be checking the newspaper tomorrow for a Halloween party to attend during the day, then off to trick or treat at night. He doesn't really get candy and I don't need to eat a bunch of candy but we'll be going non the less! Happy Halloween!
