Ruby Slippers: Fun on the Farm

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Fun on the Farm

This last week, I got to go with Rex on a field trip. Since we are definitely living in farm country out here in the Texas panhandle, there are quite a few places that have corn mazes in the weeks leading up to Halloween. One such place opens up during the week for school children to come in and enjoy their offerings for free.

The entire third grade was scheduled to go together, and the two school buses departed in the mid-morning. Parents that were going along to help wrangle the children were asked to follow in their own cars. Our destination was a few miles outside of town, a big family owned farm where each year they actually plant the corn in two big mazes that viewed from the air make some kind of image. This year it was a big osprey helicopter which is the giant military type with two sets of blades.

When we arrived, there were lots of other buses already there from several other elementary schools in Amarillo. It seemed that they had kids of all ages coming at various times in the day and rotating through. Our kids got to start out by taking a hay ride and then picking a pumpkin from their patch. You could tell that it was already pretty picked over, and the kids were instructed that they could only get a pumpkin that fit into their hand. They didn't seem to mind, and had a great time hunting through the big open field for their treasure.

Next they rotated through activities like shooting corn cobs from a huge air canon, having a corn shucking contest with another class, and of course going through the corn maze. The teachers had assigned parents to take groups of three or four kids through their rotations, and I had a fun group of four boys that included Rex. After all of that, they got to play in the area with a small petting zoo, a huge hay bale mountain, and various slides and obstacles for navigating. Who knew there was so much fun to be had on a farm?