Tate Farms

What is fall without a trip to the pumpkin patch? Going to Tate Farms has become an annual event, whether it was on a field trip with the school or a personal trip on the weekend, we have enjoyed visiting this farm. This year we were able to go with good friends Tammie, Skyler and Spencer. They are also schooling in the home so it was perfect for us to take a field trip together. We joined a group called "FEET" that specifically is for homeschool field trips. They inform educators in the home of upcoming events and field trips and then we sign up if we want to go; that way we still get the educational tours (group rate, of course). Now when we do things we must go all out so before we arrived we used Alora's face painting kit and added a pumpkin to Andrew's face and leaves to Alora's. We believe in really getting in the spirit when we do things. (They wanted full face makeup so they could look like pirates but I thought this might not be a good first impression seeing as how the picture they wanted me to use looked like a new addition to the rock group, KISS!)

As we found our group we noticed first that it was mostly made up of boys. There were some girls but mostly boys. This doesn't seem to bother Alora but we are really hoping and praying that as we get plugged in to the homeschool community we will find girls for Alora to befriend. She loves girls and girl stuff but still has a blast with the boys.


Tate Farms is home to acres of pumpkins, and fields and fields of endless cotton. It really is beautiful. We were able to take a hay ride with a guide who taught us much about the farms and about the crops. FYI-We learned that to make a pumpkin grow it must be pollinated 14 times by a bee in a 1/2 day period at the exact right time. Pretty amazing the way nature works, must be that amazing God we have!


Alora is in love with bunnies! We could have spent all of our time right here at the bunny bin. My daughter is addicted to things cute and cuddly. She is going to make a wonderful mom one day far, far, did i mention far later in the future.

Monday is Joey's off day so we were so glad to have good ole daddyo go with us.

Another favorite activity at the farm is the hay bale maze. Alora and I went through this together. I love things like this so I was very suprised when the futher and further we got into the maze the more and more uncomfortable I started to feel. I am definitely a mildly claustrophobic person these days (I don't know if this has come with age or what). Part of the maze was tunneled with more hay above your head and around the sides; I practically ran through that part trying to see daylight again. Now granted its only about thirty seconds under the tunnel but as daylight emerged I felt the urge to scream, "I'm ALIVE!" What is wrong with me? I kept telling myself, "This is a child's hay bale maze. Suck it up woman!"


Another favorite at the farm is burying your friends in the corn crib. This provided much entertainment as the kids took turns as the victim. I will tell you that if you are from my generation you will understand why I had flashbacks to "Creepshow". Does anybody remember "Creepshow"? Does anybody remember the beach scene? I did discover that if you are buried up to your ears in corn (no pun intended) it is much easier to free yourself than if you are buried up to your ears in packed sand!


Finally, jumping from the hay loft is a real hoot. I promise it was okay for the kids to do this. Many kids jumped from the hay loft in to tons of hay. Andrew, in the picture above, is demonstrating proper confident hay loft jumping, while in the picture below Alora is using a more tentative approach. This is quite safe for the kids, except for the small preschool children i saw being shoved out the loft by their Head Start teachers. One eventually jumped and landed on an unknowing little girl. Just because there is fabulous hay loft for jumping does not mean we should push our 2-3 year old out of the window. Come on people! I did have to chuckle to myself a little because some of the kids were standing up there saying, "I'm scared!" and the parents were saying, "Just jump!" I was one of those parents! Funny, huh? I am sure some of the kids were thinking, "This is the person who feeds me, loves me, cares for me and now she is telling me to jump out of a window! What???"