A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to accompany Haddie’s class on yet another field trip…this time to the Berry Patch Farms in Brighton. I’m convinced I’m the only person in Colorado who had yet to visit this 40-acre working farm.
Popular in the summer months for its abundance of pick-it-yourself currants, raspberries and strawberries, their certified organic farm’s market is infamous for their abundance of just-picked produce. They also sell their own honey and eggs as well as grass-fed beef and naturally-raised chicken from the neighbors. Their fresh fruit pies are allegedly drool-worthy.
We were one of the final school groups to come through because they’ll only be open on Saturdays through the winter. Now that the growing season is over, I wondered what on earth we would do there.
Turns out, there was plenty. We learned about honey-making and toured the hives. We made gourd necklaces. 
We went on a hay ride and played in the hay maze.
I shared the story of my childhood when I was at my Grandpa Wilde’s farm playing on the two-story high stack of hay bales. As we raced around, I stepped on what appeared to be an overlay of hay between bales but it was only a false shelf. I shot straight down a chute, trapped between those claustrophobic bales of hay.
I remember my brothers screaming I had fallen and my mother running around like a lunatic trying to find me, only to discover I was deeply submerged IN the heart of them.
Hadley and her friends were properly horrified.
And just when I thought pumpkin season was over, we gathered in a barn and watched the 20-minute video, The Pumpkin Circle, that followed the lifespan of (you guessed it) a pumpkin. The kids were then allowed to pick out their very own pumpkin to take home!
Pumpkins. BECAUSE I NEED MORE OF THOSE.
Regardless, we had a lovely time. Both of my grandparents were farmers and I harbor the romantic notion of moving out to a mountain ranch in the middle of nowhere. Where the kids can roam free and our days would be spent caring for animals, harvesting our huge garden, learning mother nature’s never-ending lessons on the trails and teaching them in the ways they learn best (that don’t include an endless barrage of worksheets and drills). Though I’ve only ever lived in the city, suburbia sometimes suffocates me–hence my almost-daily escapes to the mountains.
Then I woke up and we went home.
“I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chords that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe?” -Kate Chopin
That day at Berry Patch Farms, we all did.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 