Bergey's Breadbasket

Anouk and I met up with our Aunt C. today with a very important mission: to score some pumpkins for our front stoops (and maybe some pumpkin-flavored baked goods, too). We consulted with Google and set off...and ended up in a kind of depressing church parking lot pumpkin patch. Waaa-waah. Not exactly the festive seasonal ambience we were looking for. But did we let this stop us? No! We continued on until we found Bergey's Breadbasket and all our perseverance paid off.

Bergey's is a wonderful, family-run trifecta of fall amazingness. There's a deli and bakery featuring a host of goodies, including homemade pumpkin ice cream! There's a pick-your-own pumpkin patch. And there's a freaking awesome petting zoo, too. The animals are tethered, so you can really experience them, as evinced by several pictures I have on my camera of Anouk running frantically away from a seriously friendly pair of sheep. (The petting zoo is run by donations, so make sure you bring a few dollars to slip into the box when you visit.)

I think we explored every bit of the farm while we were there, from the chicken coop to the enthralling handcrafted wooden marble slides in the restaurant area. She was very determined to pick herself a pumpkin -- I turned around a few times and found her lugging pumpkins almost the size of her little body across the field to me. And it kind of blew her mind to be able to stand nose-to-nose with a real-life "moo." It's a good thing we've been brushing up on our animal sounds, because they got a real workout today.

(It should be noted that Bergey's also features a pretty impressive corn maze this time of year. We missed seeing it today because we went in the early afternoon and it's only open from 4-7 PM. So keep that in mind when planning your trip. This year's maze is football-themed, and from the looks of it, worth a visit, so we plan on going back for it later this month.)

After we had explored everything very very thoroughly, we had lunch at the restaurant and left with enough pumpkins and pumpkin goodies to supply a festive fall army.

Mission accomplished.

P.S.: I love Aunt C.'s choice of farm footwear. This lady knows how to petting zoo in style.