At the Farm with Jasper

On Saturday, Grandson Jasper and I went to one of the local farms that host family activities before Halloween.  We had a great time running the hay maze, watching the trebuchet fling pumpkins (pumpkin chuckin'), feeding the pigs with broken pumpkin pieces, visiting the chickens, and riding horse and tractor drawn wagons.   After the farm, Grampa John and Jasper carved his pumpkin.


Oh my!  Is Jasper frighted by his scary Jack O' Lantern, or the beheaded Frankenstein behind?!?
Or, by the look of his shirt, maybe he's turning into a Zombie for Halloween!

A pumpkin field with horse-drawn wagon in background at Jubilee Farm.

Jasper posing with the horses at the pumpkin field.

Setting up the trebuchet (similar to a catapult) to fling the pumpkin.

The pumpkin explodes when it lands, breaking up into many pieces.
The kids run to gather them up to feed to the pigs.

Jasper in the hay maze.

Fun times!

Pumpkin Harvest Begins

Every year John plants a little pumpkin patch for the grandkids.  He scratches their names on the pumpkins when they are green; so, that when they are ripe their names are spelled out with the scars.  Grandkids Lane and Luke, brought their parents with them today and harvested their pumpkins.

Luke's pumpkin is loaded ... time to go!

Echo the mom loading Lane's pumpkin.

Grandsons Lane & Luke with their pumpkins.  When John scratched the names,
Luke's pumpkin was the smallest ... but, it ended up being the biggest!

Grampa hauling out the pumpkins, while Luke rides along
and Gretchen the dog supervises.

After giving the pumpkins a bath,
Joe the dad takes them out to the truck for their ride home.

The Carlson Farm

This time of year I always feel a bit like a farmer.  John's gardens and the fruit trees are being harvested, the sunflowers are in full bloom, and you can clearly see the pumpkins under the leaves.  We usually harvest more than we can use.  So, we share with neighbors, daughter Echo comes over to make/freeze apple pies with John, and we put some of the produce up for ourselves.  For the first time this year, I'm drying some of the fruits and veggies using a dehydrator.  Here are a few of of our recent pictures.

Sunflowers with purple centers/seeds

John in the pumpkin patch under one of the tall sunflowers

Grandson Jasper's pumpkin.  John scratches the kids' names
in the pumpkins when they are green.

Grandson Lane's pumpkin.  I'm glad we have pumpkins this year.
I was afraid our spring and early summer was too wet and cold.

Grandson Luke's pumpkin.  His was the smallest at the time
of carving, but is the biggest now.  These are giant pumpkins.

John with Hemi.  Our chickens are spoiled pets.

This is also the time of year the chickens start their molt (lose feathers).
Some of the hens are sorry sights!

Some of the girls.

John is like the Pied Piper of Chickens.

Corn, pumpkins and sunflowers in this garden.  John in the background coming out with
only a few eggs in the basket.  Hens don't lay well while molting.

Peeking up into the bosc pear tree.  Looks like a bumper crop this year.

Checking out the apples that just started drying in the new-to-me dehydrator. 
I'll be giving it a good workout.