Lindsay Schiavone
Oregon, Ohio
Animal Science, Biosciences
Sophomore
This semester I am in the Agricultural Issues in Contemporary Society course (AgrComm 2367) here at Ohio State. One of our recent assignments was to visit a site of agritourism/agritainment, which is a location centered on agriculture that invites in the public for the experience. My site of choice was my local pumpkin patch: Fleitz Pumpkin Farm, located in Oregon, OH. I was going home for the weekend and thought that this would be the perfect place to write about, considering they offer so many family traditions and fun activities.
This particular pumpkin farm has been one of our personal family traditions, as well as many other families’. People will travel from out of town just to visit the Fleitz Pumpkin Farm every Halloween season. There was an array of choices of pumpkins that range from the size of a small child to the size that can fit in the palm of your hand. It really was a cool sight to see all of the friends, families, and children running around trying to find their favorite pumpkin to take home and carve. Both my sister and I picked out our own favorite pumpkins to carve later that evening.
Fleitz Pumpkin Farm also offers hayrides, goat feeding, corn mazes, and a snack shack that serves their famous homemade donuts and cider. First, our family participated in the larger of the two corn mazes that they had and after a bit of confusion and running in circles, we finally made our way out of the maze!
Next, we just had to get our share of donuts and cider. At this point, the line was backed up quite a bit, but that was not going to stop us. After waiting for 40 minutes, we finally got our donuts and cider. These particular donuts have been and always will be by far the best donuts that I have ever had, and everyone else in my hometown would agree with that as well. This time around we bought a whole dozen and took some home to have them later too!
My experience at the pumpkin patch meant a little bit more to me this year. I am an Animal Sciences major and not an Agriculture based major. Because of this Agricultural Communications course, I was able to actually think about the hard work, planning, and thought that went into the agriculture behind the family friendly experience. There is a lot of work that goes into a business like Fleitz’ and I definitely got a chance to appreciate it more this year.
Lindsay wrote this post as an in class assignment for the Agricultural Communication 2367 course. All opinions are her own.