Jaemor Farm

After church today, we went to Jaemor Farm, a place up the road in Hall County. We didn't stop by any apple orchards so far this year, so we figured this might do the trick. In fact, we had a whole lot of fun with apples...!

This is a formal shot of Daddy and Madison, as she's about to shoot her apple ion cannon, which launches old apples out at speeds illegal in most states. Why do we do this? I have no idea. There must be some hidden gene within us that says, "Hey, shooting apples and watching them splat is pretty awesome." And apparently, this gene is strong within our family.

Ready... aim... fire! This passing school bus never stood a chance. The driver was pelted with an apple going 58 mph! Okay, so that's not entirely true. This bus is stationary. It sits there as this huge target so a bunch of us gun totin' crazies can spend their recreational time launching apples at it. Madison and I are going to start a gang - yes, you can call us the Apple Dumpling Gang. And for the record, she nailed that bus. SPLAT!

It's the broncs and the blood, the dust and the mud - a crazy thing called rodeo. Here's another activity we found at the farm. It's an inflatable rodeo! Kids hopped on these sturdy balloon horses and galloped around the track. Madison was surprisingly good at this - I am being dead serious when I say that she could beat ANYONE around that track, including adults. She's an inflatable horse whisperer.

After a bit of horseplay, we boarded a giant hay ride. Minus the hay. Apparently, any ride that involves people climbing into a cart that is drug around a bit of property is called a hay ride. Even if it has no hay. Still, as you can see above, there was a bit of pretty scenery, including a view of the mountains that Madison enjoyed. She called them out - we could spot Mt. Yonah and Brasstown Bald from one part of the ride.

Another amusing activity Madison did time and again was the "Put the Rubber Ducky on the Pipe and Pump the Water so the Rubber Ducky goes Down the Pipe and Falls into the Bucket at the Other End" game. Which is a somewhat descriptive title, but there you go. As you can see above, Madison enjoyed pumping the water and watching the ducky plummet off the deep end.

But as fun as all of the above were for us, nothing compares to the main event of the afternoon - the corn maze. This was Madison's first corn maze. She's shown above, shrugging, as if she doesn't know the way. She was pretty confident to begin with, pulling us along and directing us to go this way or that. In fact, it worked. But more on that in a moment.

Somewhere early in the 90's, Daddy's first corn maze experience was in Pennsylvania, when he and Ye-Ye got lost in Amish country on their way to visit Madison's Great Grandfather.

But this time we would not get lost. No sir! Thankfully, Madison led accurately us to station one and found a map there. Using a sophisticated system*, we successfully navigated ourselves through the labyrinth of corn and out the out to safety.

Madison really enjoyed the corn maze. We weren't too sure about this one, but once she saw it, she dashed in and had all the energy in the world, unafraid and bounding down each path. Only at the very end, as you can see above, did she resort to mounting her faithful steed. It was funny towards the end: you could see all sorts of Daddies carrying weary children on their shoulders. It was quite a long walk for us - thankfully we didn't really get lost, thanks to our map reading skills at that one station. I could imagine things getting long and drawn out without any proper guidance. That maze had a few tricky spots!

Anyway, the bottom line was that we had a lot of fun today. Madison saw plenty of apple trees along the hay ride (sans hay), and later on we went back to firing apple artillery at the school bus. But soon it was time to go, and that we did, straight to Ye-Ye and Nana's house.

We spent some time over there for a bit, once again enjoying their company. They have their house decorated very nicely for fall! Madison had a great time playing games with Nana, and playing with toys in the living room. Meanwhile, Mommy, Daddy and Ye-Ye were discussing mainly our ancestry. Mommy has been making some major breakthroughs with her research of our family lines, and it's been simply fascinating. We'll post pictures and things of that nature here in time, as there are some amazing old photos Ye-Ye has been sharing with us - things that belonged to our great-great grandparents and even before that.

On our way home, we drove around the neighborhood. Halloween lights are going up - orange and white. Big inflatable skulls and pumpkins and all sorts of webbing, as if a few of the homes in this neighborhood are infested with some sort of deranged giant spiders. Madison loved the decor, of course. It reminds her that in just one week, we'll get to go from house to house and get a bunch of candy.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: this is the best time of year, from October to December. It awakens the kid in all of us!

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* Daddy looked at the map and had Mommy write down: L, L, R, L, R, R, R, L, L, L. It looked like she was writing a video game cheat.