Carroll got the ground worked up (cultivated), and Fleming Grain from Leon, Ks. (our chemical provider) had the fertilizer on the field.   I had my giant seeds ready, and the planter was working, the tractor had fuel and now we have pumpkin seeds in the ground!   Woo-Hoo!   Carroll put on the herbicide and God provided a nice rain to soak the chemical into the field to keep the weeds down.    Life is good!    It’s so easy to make this pumpkin gal happy!

In case you haven’t heard, we were noted in an article about women in agritourism in the Forbes magazine!   Dear friend Jane Eckert was featured in a Forbes article and she suggested to the writer to talk to Anna Lyles from New Mexico and to me.   What an honor to even be mentioned in such a prestigious magazine!  I have to tell people about our new notoriety because we all are reading “Grass & Grain”, “High Plains Journal” or “Successful Farmer”!

Well, the maze design from Precision Maze ought to be coming through very soon!   It’s going to be a “line of various pumpkins” with a part of the design for our school tours so that they don’t get lost in the bigger corn maze.   I’m really excited to see what Rob and Rachel Stouffer will come up with this year for us!   And if you are a teacher wanting to visit this fall with your students, we have a new state cirriculum program this year about which  we are very excited!

Until next time:   we’re waiting for the giant pumpkins to come up!

Carroll is busy designing his new attractions for this fall.   Wish I could tell you what he is adding to the pumpkin patch, but for now it’s still a secret.   It sure was fun though when I tried it out a couple of days ago!    And he has the black plastic culvert for his second project too!    Who would’ve ever thought that agritourism would keep us from retiring!    Our Kansas agritourism operation has certainly developed into a twelve month a year project.

So many peaches on the trees and apples on the trees that I didn’t prune this spring!    Learning as I go will be costly this year; but experience is a great teacher and I’m certain extreme pruning won’t happen again.  (Unless my age gives way to forgetfulness and I don’t remember this 2012 pruning!)   And the almond tree is loaded with little green almonds!   I have to learn how to harvest them and this is going to be my year.   Another value added product.

And another thing for you pumpkin lovers!   I have giant pumpkins coming up in the display area outside the pantry building!     Maybe we can get some really giant, giant pumpkins growing there for everyone to see!

We’re waiting on the corn maze design from Precision Mazes and I have no doubts that Rob and Rachel will come up with some great ideas working off the little sketch I sent them of what we wanted for our corn maze this year.   We need a small maze for our visiting school to use where they won’t get lost in the larger maze, but still lend itself to the overall maze design.    We ought to have their design next week…..can hardly wait.

It’s a busy time at this Kansas farm.   Until next time, I’m organizing my pumpkin seeds!