Greetings and salutations,
I spent this past weekend up in Humboldt county with my family visiting my son at college. We had a nice time seeing the campus, eating some food, listening to music and visiting a pumpkin patch. Since we weren't all going to be together for Halloween this year it was crucial to get our annual pumpkin patch trip accomplished.
Green Spiral Farm (here) is located at 819 Mad River Road in Arcata, CA. There are little pumpkin signs that help guide you there (we didn't have the address) so it was key to follow the little pumpkins marking the directions to turn to get there. It's a working farm that brings their crops to the local farmers' market as well as they offer food boxes based on what they are growing seasonally. It looks like a cool program and something I'd support if I lived there.
We took Fall photos there, bought some dried flowers and a pumpkin. They had an amazing selection of pumpkin colors and the one I bought is very unique. I loved seeing all of the different color pumpkins. If I wasn't travelling I'm sure I would have come home with far more than just one pumpkin.
The place has a corn maze. We didn't go through it, but I asked the ladies there if they had music piped into it to add some ambiance and said they had been thinking about it. We discussed the music I write and that adding a little musical atmos'fear could really make the attraction creepy and cool. I offered them free downloads if they wander over to my site and let me know what tracks they like.
After we left I sent the farm an email with an invitation to listen to my music and stated again that if they liked any of my tracks I'd be happy to give them free downloads. Family farms don't always have the funds and even though a track is inexpensive to download, I'd rather have my music heard at their place than not. I haven't heard back from them and that's OK. I hope I sparked a little interest in adding music to their attraction.
I found this little finger puppet on my adventures as well at a cool Ace Hardware store in Arcata. Hensel's (
here) sells not only the usual hardware store things, but has a cool candy store that sells all sorts of things beyond candy. The guy at the front register knows my son by name which cracked my wife and I up. It was fun walking around the store and seeing all the cool things. The little skeleton finger puppet was a must for me as I love puppets. I plan to figure out an appropriate name. Any suggestions? I plan to tote this puppet around with me.
I enjoy visiting a pumpkin patch. I believe my family may still try and get out to Half Moon Bay this year to visit more, but the season is closing fast.
Green Spiral Farm's pumpkin patch was very sincere. I wouldn't doubt a visit from The Great Pumpkin. These guys are doing it right. Pay them a visit if you're in the Northern most part of California.
Happy Haunting,
Mark Harvey
