Rotary Pumpkin Patch: Halloween will be final day for family fun
Saturday October 31st kids under 12 in costume admitted FREE
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published: October 28, 2009
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
With more than 17,500 visitors over four weekends, the Rotary Club Pumpkin Patch & Harvest Festival at Faulkner Farm is living up to its reputation as the place for family fun during the Halloween season. And the Patch will be open limited hours on Saturday, October 31, where children 12 and under dressed in a costume will be admitted free and have a chance to win a prize in the imaginative get-up contest.
Saturday the Patch was booming: “It’s going great!” said event Chairman Chris Wilson. “We’re expecting lots of people today,” both Pumpkin Patch regulars and first-time visitors.
“It’s a great crowd today - you can see by all the wheelbarrows out there buying pumpkins,” said Rotarian Gary Nasalroad. “And the weather is fantastic!”
“Do you eat these?” a visitor asked Tom Wineman of Newbury Park as she pointed out a pile of fascinating Blue Hubbard squash. “I guess if you’re hungry enough,” said Wineman.
There was much more than pumpkins available at the Patch: laid out in neat piles were Queensland Blue, Chicago Hubbard, Lunch Lady gourds, Super Wings, Speckled Swan gourds, Sweet Dumpling and Crown of Thorns squash, among others. Pumpkins ranged from oversized, with plenty of room for carved Halloween grins, to New Moon and Baby Boo varieties.
And speaking of grins, there were plenty to be seen on the faces of children enjoying the Buckaroo Pony Rides, Petting Zoo and atop the Hay Pyramid. A hay maze was filled with adults and children trying to find their way out.
Rotarians Bill Linder and Paul Skeels have overseen Patch entertainment, and the former said this year the venue had “more weekends, more time” and more bands and other forms of entertainment. On Halloween “The Santa Paula High School Band will be marching around, a good way,” said Linder, “to end Pumpkin Patch season.”
The Pumpkin Chucker - AKA Trebuchet - was drawing a crowd, and Rotarian Richard Gallimore and a few helpers were on duty. “It’s been non-stop today,” said Gallimore, as the warning bell was rung to let everyone know that a pumpkin was about to be hurled through the air.
After a countdown the 500-pound weight with its 2,200-pound velocity force threw a pumpkin high in the air, but it fell short of the Castle target about 250-feet away. To win a prized Pumpkin Patch T-shirt, “You have to hit the target without the pumpkin bouncing,” said Gallimore.
Nancy Nasalroad was busy at the Master Gardeners Plant Sale and said the Patch was particularly “lively this season... and it’s lovely.”
The only nonprofit Pumpkin Patch in Ventura County, all proceeds benefit Santa Paula Rotary supported programs, clubs and organizations. Patch proceeds are awarded as grants under the umbrella of the Rotary Benefit Fund, which last year contributed more than $65,000 to a variety of area nonprofits.
Historic Faulkner Farm, located at the corner of West Telegraph and Briggs roads, is now home to the University of California Hansen Trust and Agricultural Center, which uses the venue for a variety of research and other programs.
Saturday the Pumpkin Patch will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is $3, and remember: children 12 and under in costume will be admitted free on Halloween; a costume contest will be held that day at 1:00 p.m.
For more information and directions, call 888-522-1884 or visit www.faulknerfarmpumpkinpatch.com.
