Quotes of the Season

I realize I have posted hardly anything this month, but pictures from this year will be posted ASAP!  It has been one heck of fall starting back in September with the uncertainty of being open or not, to getting ready to be open, to putting all of our efforts into having a successful year.  I'm posting some of the quotes my siblings, myself and my parents have come up with this year as we've been bonding while working in the field at all hours of the day.

"Hey, there is Leo the Lion (the constellation)" while loading a mum trailer.

"I am just standing here not doing anything."  (Really??)

"He must have been real cute!"

"No broken stems!" (while smaller kids are helping with mums)

"Do I need to set my alarm for 4:30?"

"Great times are waiting, grab some Mums!"

"Burgermeister Meisterburger"

"Time for Rosary!"  (at 10:30 pm)

I am mentally paralyzed!

"Stop the Sanguine and start Diligizing"

(diligizing is a word Dad came up with to explain diligent work in progress)

"I get to babysit!"  (this is the kid trying to get out of the field work)

  

Deo Gratias!

A few weeks ago we were told that we must close our pumpkin patch for the season.  After much disappointment, my family went into action to find a way to sell all of our mums and pumpkins.  We've been selling them through fundraisers, wholesale markets, fall festivals, and even roadside.  We also gained the help of an attorney to try and work through some of these issues.  Late Sunday evening we received word that starting Saturday we can legally be open to the public!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It has been a very happy week as we have been busily getting things ready for opening day!  A huge thank you for all of the prayers and support over the last few weeks!  Throughout this all it has been wonderful to hear supporters tell me they hope things will get better, and many a times it has brought tears to my eyes to realize just how many friends my family does have here.  

Once again thank you and I would love to see you all sometime this season out at the pumpkin patch!!!!!!! 

Fun on the Farm

I've done a lot of ridiculous things in my life, but this one has to be #1. I come home from work and moms like, hey i need you to climb up on Sarah's shoulders and pick this ear of Indian corn cause it'd make such a cute picture.  I showed one of my friends and he wanted to know if I've ever heard of a ladder, haha!  We like to do things the fun way on the farm.  

Our Indian Corn is looking great though!  We will have bundle's of it for sale at the Nashville Fall Festival this weekend!

Summer Weather in September

I don't know about you all, but I'm ready for fall weather.  I love it when it's warm enough to be outside comfortably but yet cool enough at night you need a jacket.  And what about the smell of autumn, or the taste or the sites.  It's the time for hayrides, bonfires, and friends.  Mom and the kids have been working on cleaning up the schoolroom and working on the farm.  Sarah and I have been busy with school, I can't believe midterm is Friday already!  This weekend we will be delivering 800 mums to Herrin, their high school cheerleading squad sold them for a fundraiser.  I will get pictures of the mums, pumpkins, and other things to post as soon as I get the chance.  We had a neighbor give us a bunch of apples so I will be canning applesauce and apple pie filling the next few days!  Have a lovely week!

Small Town Pride

We've had quite a few friends and neighbors tell us that we could sell our mums out of their front yards and after some thinking we decided to see how well it would work.  A few nights ago we had a friend, Mrs. Frankie Warren, tell us that we could sell mums out of her front yard in Hoyleton.  Since she lives on the main road running through Hoyleton we decided to try it.  So this morning I loaded up my car, quite a few times actually, and went and sold mums roadside from 8-11:30.  It was a beautiful morning for it and it made me so happy to see so many happy customers come up and compliment me on my mums and drive away with their cars loaded up.  We are truly blessed to live in a town with so many friends!  Since this morning went well I'm hoping to continue selling mums road side style for the next few Saturdays.  Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

I Love September!

I love September!  I can't help it, I just love whenever the weather cools off and the world starts changing colors!  We still do not know much more about what will be going on with our pumpkin patch this fall, but do not lose hope!  Where there is a will, there is a way!

You Find Out Who Your Friends Are

We all question from time to time why bad things happen.  How can a family business used to support 10 growing children be closed down simply because four people out of five hundred and fifty do not like you?  How can five years of hard work and planning be suddenly down the drain?  We may not have answers to these questions yet but we do know that somehow some way, if it is God's will, things will work out.  And it is in times like this that a person learns who their friends really are.  I was at school yesterday and at 3:10 when the bell rang I got a txt message from my mom saying that the judge had ruled that our pumpkin patch is closed to the public on our property.  I was very upset, so much so that I was crying on my way to work. When I got home later that night I was still upset, but one thing that did inspire me and give me hope was to learn that almost the entire town of Hoyleton had learned of the ruling and had been calling our house and some neighbors had even come over to encourage us and to show their support.  Grown men with tears in their eyes had told us that things were going to be okay.  Women had told us we could use their yards to sell our produce since we are not allowed to sell it off of ours.  In times of discouragement it is a truly wonderful thing to know that you do have so many friends in the world who are willing to stand by you and help you in every way they can.  We do not know yet what will come in the days ahead, but my family does feel encouraged because of the support we have received over the last twenty four hours.  I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL OF OUR FRIENDS WE ARE TRULY BLESSED TO HAVE SO MANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Yours Truly,

The Country Kids

Tricia, Sarah, Cole, Dillon, Calista, Wyatt, Therese, Maryanne, Faith, and Anthony

P.S. Comments are welcome in the comment section below and you can find us on Facebook at Country  Kids Pumpkin Patch

August Musings

I know I've totally neglected this blog this past month and I'm sorry about that!  I started my senior year of high school at Nashville Community High School about a week and a half ago and it has just been non stop work and fun since.  On the farm things have been a whirlwind of activity getting ready for the season.  We have painted the outhouse, which is used as a storage shed.  Sarah and I have painted the front side of the pony barn and will be doing the backside as soon as we get a chance.  We have baby bunnies for the petting zoo that are a couple days old and Mom and Cole have been building a new dove pen.  We have sold all of our beagle puppies except one, he kids just love Baby so she is the newest addition to the family and adores playing with the kids. We've had our first big delivery of mums done to Carbondale this past Saturday and have been already selling quite a few out of the house.  I will post pictures of some of these goings on as soon as I get them downloaded off the camera.  And lastly, a huge thank you to all of our supporters!!!!!!!!!

Less than 2 months to go!!!!!

Is it just me or is July flying by?  We started off the first weekend by all 12 of us and 2 of my friends heading down to Ava, IL to have a 4th of July celebration with my dad's friends.  Side note: homemade water slides and fireworks= awesome!!!!  Then the following week was our county fair which was a whirlwind of activity.  Us four oldest kids showed some of our rabbits from the petting zoo and then I made a poster about how we grow our mums and it won Best of Show and Delegate to State Fair.  Along with all of this we've sprayed the pumpkins with herbicide and dad almost has the entire field sprayed with insecticide.  We've also been daily walking and weeding the mum field.  It's so exciting to think we're less than 2 months away from being open for business!!!!!

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy 4th of July to everyone!  We've had a packed week, full of spraying the pumpkin field with herbicide and getting ready to cut the corn maze.  All the rain we've had has been very beneficial to our mums.  They are looking awesome and we've only had to water them twice since they were planted.  Here's a picture of them!  And we have 5 week old puppies, they're sooooo cute!!!!

Growing and Mowing!!!

Well the corn maze is up a little over six inches so Mom will be cutting it with the lawn mower sometime this week.  As soon as we know the definite shape of it, I'll post a picture!!!  Pumpkin plants are up and looking great!!!  On our schedule this week we're weeding the pumpkin field, cutting the corn maze and monitoring the mums.  So far the mums are doing awesome as well.  Let's just hope we keep getting enough rain and the bugs don't start destroying everything.

Dirt, Babies, and Frying Pans

It has been one jam packed week here on the farm.  We actually got 5250 dirt pots filled between last Friday and Wednesday!  We had to check our four mum fields for water leaks and fix the problems we found, and then all the little "babies" arrived in 11 boxes on Wednesday.  We hired two of my friends from school to come out Thursday and Friday to help us plant all 5250 cuttings.  I'm in the process of developing a video that shows the entire process and will post it as soon as it is ready!  Oh frying pans, so our mum field is made up of this black groundcover to prevent weeds from growing up around the mums and so we don't have to mow around them.  Contrary to popular belief, it does not create a glare when the sun shines on it.  However, it reflect heat off of it.  So if you are standing on it during the heat of the day it's like a frying pan.  Hence how we all learned you can get sunburn on the back of your knees while standing lol  More funny stories and pictures to follow, I'm off to make strawberry jam! 

Dirt pots, Strawberries, and Pumpkins

Hello Everyone!  Well we've been extremely busy with planting pumpkins Friday, filling almost 3500 mum pots with dirt, I've begun making strawberry jam, little Anthony turned 1 month old late last week and celebrating Father's Day with Dad.  Life is at its best when you live it to the fullest!  We've also been very blessed with rain to water the newly planted 2 acres of pumpkin and it has watered down our dirt pots to where we don't have to worry about them blowing over when we put them in the field.  Our mum cuttings arrive Wednesday so we will be hitting it hard this week and hopefully as of Saturday everything will be out and planted in the field!  Pictures and more to follow!

Patch Update!

It has been a jam packed full week!  Started off with Sarah and I off to State FFA convention Tuesday morning for three days.  I got to have my mum project featured on stage for winning a State Proficiency! It was really exciting and Mom and Dad got to come up to go across stage with me!

Then Mom was down in Elkton, KY Wednesday with Grandpa picking up all of the dirt and pots.  She left at 5:00 and got back at 5:00.  And then this morning we busily started fill pots.  We got 1350 filled today!!!!  Everyone helped from the oldest (me) to the youngest (Peak Boo).  For security reasons, Mom will not let me use the little kids' names on here but I'll use their nick names. 

 

Peak Boo watched us for a little while and then jumped right in by picking up a pot and putting it in line with the rest!  She'll be 3 in September.

 

Buddy is so hard working, he'll skip playtime to help us with work on the farm.  We learn something every year and this year we got smart and gave every kid a pair of sunglasses so they wouldn't complain about dirt blowing in their eyes.

 

 

Jammin out to 94.1!  We decided the neighbors might enjoy hearing the radio instead of us trying to sing our own songs.

 

We usually have one or two kids filling pots, one kid setting out new pots and the little kids carry them away.

 

 

The bales of dirt come in stacks on pallets that we always have to get down and break open.  It's lots of fun climbing on the piles!

 

We take our work veeeerrryyy seriously lol

 

Got to love Missy and Buddy!

 

Mom and Uncle Brian are planting pumpkins right now so I'll tell you all about that tomorrow!  TTFN!!!!!

What Have We Been Up To????

 

Everything was pretty slow around the patch till about the end of May. Then we got to start planting our corn maze, the pumpkins, and getting ready to plant the mums. We have ordered our mum supplies, like potting mix, pots and fertilizer, from Deerfield's Supply in Elkton, KY. Grandpa and Mom will be driving down there next Wednesday to pick it all up. We planted our Corn Maze about a week ago and yesterday Mom sprayed the corn field with a herbicide to prevent weeds. Also Uncle Brian is coming up on the fourteenth to assist us in planting our 2 acre pumpkin field.

Along with all of these business things to keep us on our toes, we also have had an addition to our family. There are now 10 of us Country Kids! We were blessed with Baby Anthony back in the second week of May. Mom and him are doing wonderful and Mom is already back in the action helping with everything she can. The mum cuttings are arriving the nineteenth so we will be pretty busy the next two weeks with filling dirt pots and getting the mum field ready to go.

 Event though it is hard work it brings our family closer together and is teaching us the real meaning of hard work. And I have learned how much hard work can pay off! Back in April I had the opportunity to compete at the Illinois FFA State Proficiency competition and I placed first in the Specialty Crop award area with my mums! My project will be featured on stage at the Illinois State FFA Convention this next Tuesday.

More to come, I plan to post at-least once a week!

 

 

Hello from the Country Kids!

Welcome to our blog!  Through this blog we are hoping to be able to keep our customers up to date on the activities at our pumpkin patch.  We hope to update our blog once or twice week but you can also visit us at countrykidspumpkinpatch.com or like us on Facebook at Country Kids Pumpkin Patch.  Hope to see you this fall!