Natura Farms Field Trip

We spent the afternoon at a nearby organic farm with some families from a local home school group. This trip was pure fun and it was wonderful to find a new place to pick berries and buy produce. The owner, Paul, was a joy to meet as well and had a really engaging personality.

We started out the afternoon with Paul setting the kids loose in the raspberry fields and giving them 10 minutes to pick and eat as many berries as possible. "A little dessert after lunch" he said. The kids (um, and adults) had a blast and there were a few different varieties to try including a white raspberry.. Oh Yum! After our time was up, Ben commented that he felt like Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, only the pig-out was on berries!

Here is our fearless tour leader, Paul Otten, owner of Natura Farms. What a nice, interesting man!

After berry picking, the kids were led to various parts of the farm where they got a little talk about the different veggies planted there. Each child was allowed to pick for themselves a couple of everything they learned about. They filled their bags with peppers, eggplants, celery (an heirloom variety. Not the stuff in the stores), herbs, flowers, chard and apples. Ben even won a pumpkin in the "name the herb quiz." He was the first to identify oregano by smelling it and tasting a little. That's my boy!

Here we are in the apple orchard. I remembered to have someone take a picture of us together for once! And in case you haven't noticed already, yes, we are all wearing wool sweaters today. Sheesh.

When Paul set us free in the orchard, he asked that no one climb the trees to pick apples. "It's not that I have anything against children climbing trees, quite the contrary. It's just the falling out that I don't like to see" So, what does William do when we get near the first trees? He just can't help himself. See a tree, climb it. Luckily he did not fall out.

Charlie in the orchard.

At home with all their "samples" from the day.

I paid $3.00 per child to go on this field trip. Hmmmm. I think between the education, the "dessert" and the produce, we certainly got more than our fair share for the money!
Of course I couldn't resist buying some additional things I needed while we were there, like a watermelon (OK didn't need it, but come on!), some sketti squash and onions. We're looking forward to stopping in there again sometime in the next couple weeks if we can. I think we'll be needing another watermelon before the season is said and done.....