Ardenwood Fall Fest

We continued our fall festivities by going to the Ardenwood Harvest Festival! We typically go ever year to get our free Indian corn and pop corn...in addition to all the cool harvest activities they offer.  We met up with our fiends, the Hirzels, and were off and running back in time to the historic farm.  Starting at the blacksmith barn, we watch a iron snail being made.

The kids discovered a new sweet treat...honey sticks!  We learned about bees making honey that was finished off by sucking on amazing fresh honey sticks.

Checking out all the other period activities...along with these, we watched corn get ground to cornmeal, old time fire hose pumping, baking in a coal oven and hand churned ice cream.

We finally made it to my favorite part...picking the corn.  We got a quick lesson on how to pick and shuck, were handed our sack and gloves and off we went.  It's very addictive!  You search and search for the pretty corn and even though you've found at least 10 beautiful ears, you just have to keep looking for an even better one!

Luckily all the corn needed to be picked and most you could give back to the farm, so we weren't doing any harm in picking more than we would take.

Fun in the corn fields!  Timo was a boy on a mission!  He probably picked the most corn out of all of us...he loved it.

Coming out of the field, our sack was full and heavy.  We found a hay bail, found our friends and started shucking it all.

The farm asked 1/3 of your loot to be given back to the farm for their use, so we carefully picked out what we wanted to keep and wanted to donate.  It all was so pretty, it was hard to choose.  But Timo loaded up and dropped off our donations.

Corn husk doll making and apple press finished off our farm visit.  I love how Timo always finds sticks to carry around....

After lunch we headed over to the pumpkin patch for a little fun.  Timo  and Matthew found the perfect pumpkin for us and was determined to take it home.  But at $30, we decided to visit our local grocery store for a little bit cheaper one!

It was a fun, hot day on the farm!  We had depleted all our snack and water by the end of the day, were dirty and dusty so we stopped in at a McDonalds to get a refreshing beverage and wash up.  Oh how we love hand dryers.  A fun, long had was had by all!