Pick your own pumpkin, right off the vine, at Old Baker Farm in Harpersville, Alabama, less than an hour away from Birmingham and get the authentic down-home farm experience! With a corn maze, hay bale maze, cotton bounce, hay rides, hay mountain and so much more, our family spent an October day making some fall memories to last.
With corn fields, cotton fields and pumpkin fields surrounding this 200 year old farm (the Bakers have lived here for over 100), you can't help but be amazed by the beauty. As we sat munching on BBQ (yum!) and listening to a hammer dulcimer and fiddle trio in a quiet corner, I couldn't help but wonder what it must be like to live at Old Baker Farm. Filled with families and business now, it must be so peaceful the rest of the year round. What a treasure the Baker's have, and how amazing to be able to share it with the community.
I've been itching to get some nice pictures of the boys, and maybe even a family portrait or two, since we haven't had professional photos taken in years. And now that we are homeschooling, we don't even get school pictures this year. Luckily, I imagined Old Baker Farm would make a nice back drop for some pictures, and had the foresight to put the guys in matching plaid shirts as we set out to explore the farm. Man, was I right! If you are looking for a good place to fill your Fall scrap books and memory albums, Old Baker Farm is teeming with beautiful backgrounds, fall decorations and rustic scenes galore!
Here are some of my favorites!
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Getting pictures of the guys is just about impossible these days. At seven and nine, someone is always closing their eyes, making a face or getting distracted by squirrels. Most of my attempts at decent sibling shots look like this:
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But, I mean, look at the background. Gorgeous, right?! I think I may have to FRAME this one even!
We DID get one good family picture (with the help of a friendly stranger), YAY! Here it is, and while we're at it... let's pretend we live in this oh-so-beautiful farmhouse, shall we? Ok.
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But enough about family pictures. Though, seriously, this is an ah-mazing place to take some. What about the fun? Well there's plenty! Check out a few of the things we did on the farm.
Cotton Bounce!
What's more fun than a trailer filled with real cotton from the farm for a sensory experience? The piles of fluffy, white cotton come right from the nearby farm fields! You can even wander into the fields and pick some cotton yourself, feel the seeds inside and figure out where cotton balls and cotton clothing come from!
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Hay Rides and Pumpkin Patch!
There's a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch, or you can go old-school and take a ride on a draft-mule drawn cart. I loved seeing the beautiful draft-mules. At the pumpkin patch, you can walk out into the fields and pick your own pumpkin right off the vine. Old Baker Farm must grow an incredible number of pumpkins to accommodate all the visitors that come to the farm! We were there at the end of the fourth weekend of the season and there were still lots of pumpkins, but most of the big ones were gone. Next time we will go earlier in the season!
Tip: be sure to leave your pumpkins with the friendly volunteers at the patch (tips are appreciated as they are raising money for their mission projects). They will haul your pumpkins back to the parking lot from the patch and have them waiting for you as you drive out. They will even load them into your car for you!
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Everything Else
There are so many other fun things to do, we decided to put it all in a video. So here you go! Hay mountain slides, corn bins, the corn maze, visiting the farm animals, riding the farm train, guessing the weight of the giant pumpkin and more, documented by our junior reporters. The slide and horse-back riding was their favorite!
Info for Visiting
Old Baker Farm is open everyday until Oct. 31st (see website for hours), with only one weekend left before Halloween! But, they also grow Christmas trees, so look for another chance to visit the farm around the holidays!
Disclosure: Thank you to Old Baker Farm for hosting Macaroni Kid South Birmingham to facilitate the writing of this review.
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| Fall Family Fun in south Birmingham! | ||
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Macaroni Kid South Birmingham is a free weekly e-newsletter and website focused on fun family events and things to do with kids in the South Birmingham region. We gather together all kinds of local family events and activities each week, and add useful information about classes, family-focused businesses, book and product reviews, recipes, crafts, school and camp guides and more. We proudly serve families in downtown Birmingham, Mountain Brook, Homewood, Vestavia Hills, Hoover, Pelham, the Oak Mountain and 280 area, Helena and Alabaster.
