Hollin Farms

Over the weekend we had Stake Conference.  That meant that Dave was at meetings all day Saturday, literally.  He had a meeting about scouting from 8-noon and a priesthood meeting from like 3-6.  Since Dave was gone all day, Penelope and I took advantage of the fall weather and went to a farm to pick pumpkins, etc.  The instigator of this trip was our friend Rebecca Jex.  She had mentioned finding a place to pick apples and we were in!  We found an even better place, though, Hollin Farms.  This farm had apples, pumpkins, peanuts, potatoes and lots of other vegetables that you could harvest yourself.  The best part:  Penelope could play in the dirt!  She loves to be outside and gets really mad if we don't let her stay outside as long as she'd like.

When we first got there Penelope was distracted by the pumpkins:

 Rebecca and a few friends all piled in our minivan to make the 45 minute trek out to the farm.  Rebecca was all about "picking" peanuts, so we headed there first.  And no, you don't pick peanuts...you dig the plant out of the ground and then pick the peanuts off the roots.  Rebecca's roommate Tiffany explained this to us.  She is a VA native, so we kept passing her off as the peanut expert to everyone who came over to see how peanuts were really harvested.  What did P do while they harvested peanuts, you ask?  She played in the dirt.  Heaven!

 Rebecca with the peanut plant (Tiffany is in the left corner finding the good plants and digging them up with her pitchfork)

 Penelope found a gourd.

 Here's a view of part of the farm.  Behind us are the potatoes.

 The owners are nice enough to explain to the city folk that you shouldn't pick up the green potatoes...they turn green when they hang out in the sun too long.  Unfortunately there were a lot of those, and every time we dug into the ground we speared potatoes!

 Tractor!  P really liked to try to steer (that's Elaina,our friend we first met in Lincoln when she came for grad school.  Now she does fingerprinting for the FBI at Quantico.)

 Hangin' in the pumpkin patch!

 This was P's favorite part, for as much as she loved the pumpkins & dirt: goats!!  She literally squealed and screamed when she saw them, as well as did the full body excitement-shake!  (P also made friends with every dog there.  The dog owners were nice enough to let her pet their dogs when they saw how excited she was to see the dogs, too.)

 She wanted the goats to come to her, but those kids were feeding them apples.  Don't worry, they came over to her eventually.

 Did y'all notice P's cute backpack?!?  That's right, my mom made that for her as a surprise and sent it to us!  She's carrying my keys, a squirt fruit, the camera (when not in use) and a few other things.  I'm hoping to phase out her diaper bag and use toddler backpacks instead!  SO CUTE!!

Sorry about the picture overload.  One of these days I'll learn to do a collage...maybe.