Pumpkin Picking

This post has been updated.

This weekend we headed up to Santa Barbara and while we were there, we headed to Lane Farms to their pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. Unlike some other pumpkin patches which have lots of bouncy houses and fancy things...Lane Farms is old fashioned. They have a corn maze, hay ride, goats and pigs to visit, a scarecrow, and old tractors to climb up on...and its all free. And on top of it they have a great selection of pumpkins of all sizes and some funny looking gourds as well.

The first thing we ventured into was the corn maze. This maze is tricky and difficult. The corn is very tall, the paths are narrow, and there is no easy way out (unless you find the guy wearing a Lane Farms shirt and decide to follow him after being in the maze for 20 minutes and having a little girl who was about to freak out and he leads you right to the exit...not that we did that).

Ellie enjoyed climbing on the tractor and pretending to drive it. Then she enjoyed a little running, jumping, and throwing around of hay. She actually watched some big girls (college age kids) throwing hay and trying to get a perfect picture. And she wanted to try. She did a great job being patient and waiting her turn to play with the hay.

Ellie and I went on the tractor ride around the farm. Nick had to stay and guard the pumpkins. The ride was short and sweet and fun. I tried to make a joke and ask Ellie if she was excited to get to see the backside of corn on the tractor ride...she just looked at me like I was crazy. If she knew how, I'm sure she would have rolled her eyes at my lame joke (but hey, Disney invented the backside of water joke first!).

Then it was time to pick out the perfect pumpkin. There were lots of choices, and Nick (our resident pumpkin carver) was a little particular about what types of pumpkins he wanted to get. So Ellie grabbed a wagon and we headed out into the patch to find 3 perfect pumpkins (one for each of us). We found a short and stout one, a tall and skinny one, and then the most perfect little round one.

Before leaving Ellie requested that we wash the pumpkins at the pump and trough that they had set up.

While we were waiting in line to check out, Ellie saw some adorable mini-pumpkins. Ellie picked through them and found the "cutest baby pumpkin" and said that we had to get it for the baby in mommy's tummy. So we did...and Ellie posed with the scarecrow with the baby pumpkin.

 

We all had a great time at the Lane Farms pumpkin patch with all the traditional fun including the difficult corn maze. This is the second year in a row we have headed to Lane Farms around Halloween and it has been a great experience. But of course, Lane Farms has been around since I was a kid!

The above photo is me, in 1982 getting my pumpkin at Lane Farms.

Anyway, Lane Farms is a great Santa Barbara tradition that has been around for as long as I can remember! Besides the fun pumpkin patch they have GREAT strawberries when they are in season. So, I'm sure additional visits to Lane Farms will be in our near future.