Paulus Farm Market

Hello all!  Many of you have been to our Mother’s day make and take events in the past.   We’ve been offering this fun time of decorating and planting your own pot of flowers for many years now and I’m always happy to see all the people who bring their little ones to this farm event.  It’s especially nice to see the “Dads” and other Father-like figures who bring their kids to make something special for Mommy and Grandma, Mee-Maw, Mom Mom and Nana.

For just $7 you can bring your child (or yourself!) and help him or her plant a nice pot of colorful annual flowers and then decorate the pot with foamy stickers and/or paint if you prefer.  If you decide to paint then you’ll need to allow yourself time to shop around the market so the paint can dry!  We would love for you to stay and shop, so this is a choice we highly recommend!

Make a homemade card with supplies provided too.  Finish your experience with a snack, drink and visit with our friendly farmyard friends.

Be sure to bring your camera to document the whole event.  Print those pics and add them to your gift; Mom is sure to love her special present, complete with story on how you created it together.

REMEMBER, all supplies are provided:  flowers, soil, pots, decorating items…and ADULTS are certainly welcome to come and plant too for a fun day out of the house.  Make one project or make ten projects!  Just $7 per project!

This event is on Saturday, May 11 from 10:30 to 11:30 AM.  Meet us in the big tent and wear your farm clothes because we don’t shy away from getting dirty here!  Don’t forget to pre-register by emailing us at info@paulusfarmmarket.com .

See you soon!

Thank you!  You clicked on my blog despite my annoying plea!  :0  I haven’t written a blog since the fall so I just felt the need to seem a bit desperate for readers; ’cause I am.   It’s January and I have the ‘whim whams’ as Nan always called them.  Time for some productivity despite the howling winds blowing outside my window.  Time to write!  And then it’s time to clean my house.  No, I didn’t save the best for last today.  Ugh, I am dreading that part of my day.  Anywho…

Super Bowl.  Let me just start out by saying that I do not know football.  I do not pretend to know football.  I do not even enjoy it all that much.  The thing that I do enjoy is the tradition surrounding the biggest football game of the year.

Tradition.  That’s a standard word in our family.  We have Chilson traditions and we have Paulus traditions.  Someday we’ll have other family traditions too.  And by tradition I mean, anything that we’ve done even once as a family and we really liked and so now the kids (and adults) expect it every year and if we don’t do it, it’s really quite disappointing and we’ll never forget to do it again because it’s easier just to do it than to look at the sad little faces surrounding us and answer all the questions as to ‘why’ we aren’t doing it again this year.  Yes, mom, I know that was a horribly grammatically incorrectly worded sentence…so is this one.  🙂  The whim whams make you do crazy things sometimes.  Even as crazy as using incorrect grammar.

I digress.

Tradition.  We love it.  We own it.  We change it from time to time.  But Super Bowl Sunday always, ALWAYS, has one thing for us.  B-I-N-G-O!

So BINGO is a pretty common game.  You’d say most people know how to play it, right?  Right.  It’s a game you can play with tots and a game that teenagers think is still cool as long as you have the right prizes.  It’s a game that we adults love too, with prizes, right or wrong!  It’s a game that my in-laws do up right!

On Super Bowl Sunday, when we walk in to my mother and father-in-law’s home, we will smell wonderful ribs cooking.  We will ooh and ahh over the kitchen island filled with decadent and savory dips to go with crunchy chips.  But soon after, sometimes even before we start noticing these delights, we look to the left of the food table to another table and see them- The BINGO prizes.

Now, I’ve never been shopping for these coveted prizes, but I’m picturing it as a great deal of fun.  My father-in-law and mother-in-law with a shopping cart at the dollar tree or the grocery store or wherever their hearts may take them this particular time, are smiling.  They’re looking for some fun.  Some fun stuff for the family.  What will make everyone smile this year?  What will get a laugh?  What will the kids like?  How many of these should we get?  I can picture it clearly.  The giant tubs of cheese curls, peanut butter, hot cocoa mix, olives (we could do without those, thank you), candy and mac ‘n cheese come to mind.  Yes, we Pauluses do love food.  Some of us have better taste than others (you olive lovers come to mind and you know who you are, Matt and Dan!).   At one time, when the kids were smaller, we had lots of fuzzy stuffed animals.  There are always goofy trinkets along with the food.  There are always useful items too…dish sponges come to mind!  They’re usually some of the last choices on the table, but they’re also snapped up when the time is right!  Some things are obviously for a certain someone but many times end up going home with someone unexpected.  We’re ruthless that way!

It must be a great time to shop for these prizes.  I know that it’s a great time to sit around the dining table, munch on snacks, listen to my father in law call the bingo numbers and anticipate the first, second, third, fourth…fifteenth shout of ‘BINGO!’  Everyone gets prizes, not because we’re fair that way, but because we play and play and play.

Determination and perseverence run high in this family and we help each other achieve along the way.  It may be a BINGO game, but it’s also a tradition.  And tradition is what we’re all about whether it’s a simple game or just life in general.  Neither is easy unless you have your family’s support.  That’s another thing that we ALWAYS have.

So happy Super Bowl to you; may you start your own traditions that bring you closer together as a family.

Feel free to adopt our traditions…maybe you’ll run into my in-laws while they’re shopping for prizes.  I’m sure you’ll have fun.

It feels like Christmas here on the farm because we have a new toy!  It’s big and it’s shiny and it’s bright yellow!  It makes noise and smoke too.  It didn’t come with a red bow, but it did arrive with quite a fanfare down the highway!    Passersby gave the ‘thumbs-up’ sign according to our creator/builder/super enthused, delivery man.  Drivers craned their necks to get  a better look at what was being hauled down route 15 behind Mark’s van.

Mark.  The man behind it all.

He got the team together and told us if they built it, customers would come…to the market to try it.  “It will be awesome!”  “No one else has anything like it around you!”

So “Team Smokin'”, the 7th in the nation world champion punkin chunkin’ team, built us a Pumpkin Chunker and we named it the “Harvest Hiccup!”

and now it’s here…

We’ve been “chunkin punkins” from this air-powered cannon for the past week and a half now and I have to say that it is fun!

“It is super fun!”  -according to our boys who also love to shoot potatoes and corn out of the cannon.

Smiles come from all who try it.  Big boys, small boys, Big girls, small girls…everyone is serious when they choose their pumpkins and then place them in the cannon.  They then stand back and wait for the air tank to fill…to about the count of 15.  It’s a long 15 seconds!  After that, it’s time.

Time for the eager customer to pull the lever.  “3, 2,1…shoot!”

Eyes widen at the sheer distance and then, the “chunk!”  The pumpkin goes about 500 ft and explodes on impact.

What could be more exciting?  LOL

You’ll just have to try it to believe it 🙂

If you’d like to come to the farm and have some fun, please see below:

Saturday 9-5 Sunday 11-4       Fall fun fort, hay play tent, farm zoo, and hayride to the corn maze, u-pick pumpkins* and pumpkin chunker*  admission $4 per person, all ages 1 and up to adult

*u-pick pumpkins are an additional charge of $2, $5 or $8 depending on size and pumpkin chunker is $3 for one pumpkin launch or 2 launches for $5 (includes the pumpkin)

Special hours on Thursday and Friday 5-7 PM     admission $1 per adult for a hayride to the corn maze, u-pick pumpkin patch* and pumpkin chunker*  Children’s admission is $4 (also includes farm zoo, hay play tent and fall fun fort)

Weekday children’s special  Monday through Friday 9-7  admission $3 per child for fall fun fort, farm zoo and hay play tent area only

We hope to see you soon!

So yes, I know we have it pretty good.  People tell me that.  People tell our kids that.  People tell my husband that.  We know it’s great to live on a farm.  There is no doubting it.

Until.

Mid summer hits and the kids are looking for “other” things to do.  Read, ‘non-farm related’ people.  They’ve planted and picked.  They’ve explored the fields and tended to the animals. They’ve entertained themselves for quite some time with all the “farm stuff” and they’ve enjoyed themselves immensely.  Our family vacation to the north is still a couple of weeks away and now they’re wondering what else they can do.

Oh sure, they have loads of toys, books to read, friends to play with and they still have all their regular farm chores:  tending to their garden, feeding/watering the rabbit, quail and pheasants, walking the dog and helping out wherever else we might need them.  But what else?  Well, left with a good deal of  free time, these boys’ imaginations soar with other things that might be better than living on and tending to the farm that we have.

Quotes from our farm boys:   “Wouldn’t it be cool to live in the woods?” (Their grandfather has a cabin in the woods) “Why can’t we have a creek on our farm?” (Aunt Donna has a creek by her house that the boys frequent) “Why can’t we finish our basement complete with a home theater, jacuzzi and a popcorn maker?” (Um, I don’t know anyone who has this but maybe the kids do) “I wish we had a giant camper and could travel the world!” (Ryder checks them  out at the garage near Maggie’s Italian Ice)  “Let’s make homemade ice cream and sell it at the market!”  (The word ‘let’s’ undoubtedly excludes them and means that they think their father and I should find another 40 hours a week somehow to make ice cream on top of everything else that has to be done) “How about building a pool?” (Their Aunt Sha Sha, who lives just down the road, has one so don’t let them fool you into thinking they’re at all deprived of swimming this summer!)  The list goes on and on…:)  And although they’re really not complaining, it does get tiring hearing of all their wants.  I wonder if kids who live at the beach (my dream) get sick of it and wish they lived on a farm.  Probably.  Maybe.  I’m sure there are times.

But it’s okay, I know they love it here and it’s healthy to dream.  Maybe someday they or we will have/do these things.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed on the ice cream and big camper dreams.

The grass is always greener on the other side.  I ask the boys if they know what that means.

Insert much eye rolling from my kids right about now.  Okay.  I smile.  It’s time to make slime.

“What?”  Eye rolling has turned into eyes widened.  Ah, I’ve got something and it doesn’t require moving, major construction, building permits, change of occupation, lots of time or buckets of money.  In fact, it doesn’t involve anything more than a few ingredients and I guarantee a good time whether you live on a farm, at the beach, in the woods, in a camper or by a creek.  And it, the slime, need not be green as my youngest thought when considering my quote of grass being greener and then the suggestion of making slime.   I guess the connection is a long shot, but hey at least it got him thinking.

Nothing lifts a mood more in my house than the creation of something new, especially if it’s messy!  So here is my favorite boredom buster recipe.  After we make it and the boys have had ample time to squish it and make gross sounds with it, they like to use it with their army guys and rubber bugs.  We usually make it green or brown to give it that extra disgusting touch, but I believe that later today when we make another batch, that I will try making mine pink and adding some glitter to it!  That way I can be sure none of the boys in my house will touch it 🙂

SLIME RECIPE (NON-EDIBLE):  3/4 C. warm water, 1 C. Elmer’s glue, food coloring.  Mix together in one bowl.  In another bowl mix 4 tsp. Borax (this stuff is in the laundry section and it works awesome for so many other things too; you’ll love it!) and 1 1/3 C. warm water.  Pour contents of 1st bowl into the 2nd bowl.  DO NOT STIR.  Let set for 1 minute.  Remove from bowl and set on coated paper plate or bowl or waxed paper.  Do not put on cloth.  Store in air tight container.  Can add water during playtime for more slimy consistency.  This is a great activity for parties or as party favors in cool containers…even for the kids who seem to have it all 🙂

Make a container of it in every color imaginable while the weather is warm and play with it outside because it does stick to clothing, furniture, carpet and the cat.  Trust me on this!

Have a happy day