Varner's Orchard

This past week, we took a trip with our Mother's of Preschoolers (MOPS) group to Varner's Orchard in Collegeville for some fall festivities.  We went on a tractor ride, picked apples, used pedal tractors, went through a hay maze, looked at some tractors, saw how apples are processed, visited the farm animals and had some apple cider for a snack.  Phew, what a busy day!  We all had a great time taking part in the fall activities and also spending some time with some friends.

Here are the majority of the kids on trip, less Abby and another little baby who were with their moms via baby carrier.

Couldn't leave out Abby and Jocelyn!

This is our tractor we went on for our scenic farm tour.

Some of the moms and kids on the tractor ride.

Nate was our diligent apple picker for the trip.  He was so excited to pick apples for probably the final time this season and to place them into his bag.  Poor Benjamin had a stomach ache at this point in the trip so he didn't want to participate in the apple picking.  Luckily, his stomach problems were very short-lived.

 These funny pumpkinheads were all over the fame.  The kids loved seeing them!

The hay maze was a huge hit!!  The kids kept racing through it again and again!

The pedal tractors were another fun activity.  I think Benjamin and his friend Tommy stayed on these longer than anything else!

Nate also enjoyed the tractors, although he was a little too short to actually pedal them.

...But he did like the real tractor!  There were about 5 or 6 real tractors - all of the different - set up around the farm to explore.

Can we go and see the farm animals yet, Mommy?

Ah-ha, here they are!  Ben and Nate with their two friends Tommy and Hannah, as they discuss how the goat would go about walking up the ramp to the lookout point.  Unfortunately, no goats gave us a visual example this time, but when we were here with Ben's school last fall, a goar did actually go up the ramp and put himself on display at the very top for all to see.