Fall Farm Tour 2007

Yesterday, we made our second annual trip to area farms on the Kaw Valley Farm Tour. A $10 ticket gets you a map and description of 15 farms within driving distance of Lawrence. Kyle and I picked the farms we were interested in and spent the day driving around the countryside seeing the various ways that people live off the land in Kansas. This all began last fall in the spirit of enjoying our time in Kansas and getting to know the area as much as possible before we moved on. We really enjoyed ourselves last year and were eagerly waiting for the farm tour weekend to come along this year.

We began our day by visiting Schaake's Pumpkin Patch---a real live pumpkin patch!!!! Kyle and I thought it was so cool to be able to take a tractor ride out to the pumpkin vines and walk through them and literally twist our chosen pumpkins off the vines. Our delight may sound silly to some, but pumpkins patches do not exist in SC. There were mostly families with children out at the patch, but I guess Kyle and I are kids at heart anyways!

We picked out 5 pumpkins and rode the tractor back to the barn where we weighed our loot and payed by the pound. If you ever have the chance to go to a pumpkin patch (with or without children), go do it! We had a blast!

Next, we rode around to a winery (yes, there are vineyards in Kansas, believe it or not) and a goat farm where fresh cheese is made. This was the slightly unfair portion of the farm tour in that I could not taste the wines nor try the fresh goat cheeses (they were unpasteurized). I did enjoy watching Kyle taste everything, though. He bought a couple bottles of wine and thought the cheese was really good.

The last few places we visited were a Bee Ranch (sorry Chris, no mini cowboys with lassos) and a family farm where they raised all sorts of livestock. We saw elk, turkeys, chickens, guineas, puppies, ducks, rabbits, cows, etc. All in all, it was a beautiful day to be out and about enjoying the countryside.