Views from the Drumlin

Halloween is today (at least on the farm)!

Well, what can I say? It snowed BEFORE HALLOWEEN! Good news is that the snow is melting as we speak and we're open this evening for Tales of the Night. If you haven't purchased a ticket yet you can still come, just buy one at the window this evening. Doors open at 6:30 pm.

Thanks to the folks at CA Technologies, who are sponsoring Tales of the Night, and who came and helped decorate, we have a ton of fantastic scarecrows this year. In addition to the great scarecrows I shared before we now have this whole bunch (plus another group, seriously they made a ton of scarecrows!). Don't worry they all got heads after I took this photo.

I can't spill all the secrets of the hayride, but here's one shot of the haunted graveyard. Looks like some staff got pretty creative coming up with those tombstones...

And just to round out the photos (and keep your spirits up in the cold), one final beautiful flower from last week. I don't think we'll be seeing much scenery like this until next spring.

Hope to see you tonight! If you see the roving staff person with the camera come say hi, your photo might end up on the blog next week!

Fall Fabulousness...

It's beginning to look a lot like.... HALLOWEEN! Our scarecrows are up all around the farm.

Our staff and volunteers have made all sorts of scarecrows this year. I assume these are the preschool scarecrows.

And the college coed scarecrow.

And what I am guessing must be Grandma scarecrow.

And then there's the fall color. It's not only the leaves, but the grasses and corn stalks too.

This just in from our exciting new department... In case you didn't see the announcement on our Facebook page the new critter we'll be introducing shortly is a fisher! Here's his enclosure, which is just about ready for him. Once he's acclimated we'll have him on display. It should be sometime in early November (shockingly that's only a little more than a week away!).

Last, but not least, check out the adorable new puzzle at the Audubon Shop. Yes, that is one of our very own lambs! If you love to see our adorable spring lambs each year, and you're into puzzles (this one looks pretty hard) this has your name all over it. 

That's the news from the farm this week. We'll be back next week with an update on our Tales of the Night preparations.

Weekly Roundup October 14

It's already mid-October and all I have to show for foliage around the farm is this... One sad wet leaf!

I'll be on the lookout for more color in the coming weeks, though it seems that many of the trees that usually put on a great show have lost a lot of their leaves, or have turned brown already. How's the foliage in your neck of the woods?

The real color is still at our farmstand. The mix of gourds and pumpkins, the deep colors of the last of the hardy greens, and sturdy purple onions.

Here's a quick photo of one of the junior egg mobile residents. I suspect I snapped a photo of a weather check, "hey still raining out there?"

Those of you with kiddos in tow have probably realized that we've begun some construction on the farm. Cool tractors!

We're building a new barn here, to give us a bit more flexibility. Once it goes up you may see calves, lambs, or goats there, and it will be right a the bottom of the big entrance hill. We owe a huge thank you to our donors, Dick and Marian Thornton, The Claneil Foundation, and The Red Acre Foundation.

Our new calves continue to do well. They look like night and day.
Here's calf #2.

And here's calf #1 who looks like she's wearing a wool coat!

Last weekend's fantastically warm weather brought big crowds for our October Harvest Days. This weekend is the last of our October Harvest weekends. We're featuring pick-your-own potatoes. We'll change gears after the weekend, and start preparing for Tales of the Night, our Halloween event!

And as many of you may have seen on our Facebook page we're expecting a new Drumlin Farm resident soon. Here's a photo of the staff prepping the enclosure. Any guesses of what it might be?

And on a final, and very important note, Mass Audubon has just released the State of the Birds report. There's good news and not so good news, but it's all important news, and I'm willing to bet you'll learn a lot. Read the report and explore the data on our website.

Mooove over last week's calf; there's a new baby on the farm!

Born yesterday, a bull calf. Mom (Truffle) and calf are both doing well.

 

The calf was up and walking very quickly. By the time this photo was taken (about an hour later) he appeared to be getting a bit tired. Either that, or he thought he was a camel and this is how one gets up and down. Or maybe he's demonstrating a yoga pose?

Truffle did a great job of cleaning up the calf.  

Truffle's calf from last year (mostly grown up) Tilly, was a very curious onlooker. She's also quite the camera lens licker. Be warned photogs! 

Come visit this weekend. The weather folks claim it's going to be nearly 80 degrees! And in case the calf cuteness isn't enough, this is also one of our October Harvest Weekends. There will be pick-your-own pumpkins, crafts, snacks for sale, and live animal demonstrations.