Great Pumpkins

PATCHY: Since moving up here several years ago, we've made it a point to visit a different pumpkin patch in the greater Seattle area each October. This year's destination was Bailey Vegetables, a bit south and east of Everett.

The farm (also known as Bailand Farms) has been in operation a hundred years, per their Web site. That's a long darn time!

Monday's skies were a patchwork of gray, white and blue ... but mostly gray, so we were taking our chances, but we didn't know when we'd fit the visit in if we didn't do it yesterday, so out we went!

We decided to tackle their corn maze first. Here's an aerial shot ... you can see it's in the shape of the U.S. of A.

We started in the Pacific Northwest, and you know what that means ...

That's right, some Seahawks' football!

There was a mini football field carved into the corn. CJ did his best "Beast Mode" impression ...

Annabelle attempted a Steven Hauschka-like field goal. 

We headed south from Seattle, down a bucolic Interstate 5. If only it were really this peaceful.

Before long, we were in California, where the kids panned for 'gold.'

They each found (and left) a nugget!

Heading further southbound, we ran into Mexico. Apparently they grow corn there, too.

CJ and Annabelle headed north and east, and eventually, we arrived in St. Louis, Missouri. They stood under the famous arch, of course.

And since St. Louis is home to last year's World Series winners, the St. Louis Cardinals, there was a baseball field carved into the cornfield. Sweet!

Watching the kids play baseball next to a cornfield reminded me of one of my favorite movies, "Field of Dreams."

Here, CJ delivers a hanging breaking ball. ...

And Annabelle served up a few curve balls in the cornfield!

Good thing neither one of them hit a home run ... we'd never find the ball!

We wandered around some more, and ended up at Native Americans' encampment in the Great Plains.

And after awhile, we found ourselves at the Alamo!

We were all disappointed there was no basement at the Alamo, so we couldn't find Pee Wee Herman's bike. 

Heading eastward, the kids had to climb the Appalachian Mountains at one point.

We finally made our way down to Florida, and out of the maze, having crossed all of America. :)

While at the farm, we admired a few critters, including weeks-old piglets Pumpkin and Midnight. 

A friendly farmhand told us they'd weigh 500 pounds or so within 9 months!

We also saw a large flock of snow geese. The farm lady said they had taken up residence a couple of weeks ago, and were eating in the winter wheat field.

Maze complete, it was time to turn our attention to finding the Perfect Pumpkins.

We urged the kids not to choose the first orange orb they spotted. Rather, they should explore and find the one that spoke to them (so to speak, ha ha).

Annabelle found her match in the Aladdin pumpkin patch.

CJ's gourd was across the way ...

in the Captain Jack patch.

Whilst among the pumpkins, CJ wondered aloud what the top pumpkin producing state was. We didn't have an on-the-spot answer for him, but I was happy today to see that one of the short articles the "Time for Kids" issue (Oct. 10) they read listed the top 5. 

Care to take a guess before I tell you the answer?  I'll post the answer (per Time for Kids) at the bottom of the blog. ...

Pumpkins picked, it was time to give them a bath before putting them in the car.

The pumpkins seemed to enjoy it. ;)

In addition to pumpkins, the farm sells vegetables and flowers.

It's picturesque from the moment you enter ...

And as we exited, I couldn't help but smile at the lone pumpkin - a sentinel gourd, guarding the road. Who dare defy the mighty orange orb?!

CODING: The kids got some current events and language arts work in this afternoon thanks to a couple of issues of Time for Kids. The Oct. 10 issue had a cover story called "Learn to Code," which was primarily about teaching elementary aged students to write computer code. 

From the article we learned about Code.org, a nonprofit with a lofty goal of every student in every school having the opportunity to learn computer programming. 

The story also mentioned coding programs for kids, including Tynker, Hopscotch, Codeacademy and Scratch (the latter of which CJ and Annabelle have both dabbled in). 

After reading the article, we viewed a related video timeforkids.com/code

JUST LIKE JACQUES:  The kids read another Time for Kids issue (Sept. 26), which introduced them to Aquarius, an underwater science lab. One of the scientists on board is Fabien Cousteau, grandson of world famous ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau.

This summer, Fabien completed 31 days of dwelling on the ocean floor in the Atlantic, off of Florida. 

We viewed a short video about the mission on timeforkids.com/aquarius.

TOP FIVE: The United States' top 5 pumpkin producing states are, in order,  Illinois (547 million pounds per year), with California a distant second (195 million pounds a year). The remainder of the top 3 are Ohio (100 million), Michigan (98 million) and New York (96 million).