School holiday time is always a favourite for your farmyard friends here in Old Macdonald’s Farm in Brentwood, as hundreds of children, and their parents too of course, rush down to visit them, and maybe even feed them too. What our animals do not realise is that, whilst they are an important part of the plans for a great value day out for all the family, we have other activities for them.
This half term was no exception, and young Damion Miller, aged 4, found he has won a Nintendo Wii for his magnificent pumpkin carving! What is more, he and his family will visit the farm later in the year as Old Macdonald’s guests and receive the prize from good old Santa Clause himself. Here we show Damion (in the middle) with Mum Kirsty on the right and our own Jade on the left. The pumpkin is the round orange one if you are confused.
Sadly Old Macdonald has to report that our Catapult is Kaput, as our Pumpkin firing machine, appropriately for Halloween, gave up the Ghost. A crack developed down the throwing arm, probably a witchy spell placed on it, and it has to go into retirement! However, there was lots more to enjoy all through the week with our ghastly ghostly train and spooktacular surprises enticing visitors here.
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If you had never seen our catapult pumpkin firing, why on earth not? Built entirely from scrap it shot pumpkins at a witchy target in the centre of our sheep field and the nearest to the witch qualified for our grand Halloween final, and the winner of that would have got a free annual pass. Next year Old Macdonald will find another way to give you the chance to win an annual pass on Halloween!
By the way, no witches were injured in the running of this competition, and our sheep and goats love the mulched pumpkins that our contest produces! Shows how powerful Essex witches can be to break our giant machine though.
I visited your farm at Halloween with my daughter. We are both deaf and came with the RDA group. We had a wonderful day and our particular thanks to Ray who I understand smoothed out difficulties before the event that your staff had and who arranged for Matt, what an angel, to allow us to meet the animals on the day. They particularly allowed the blind, deaf girl to touch so many animals and her happiness made us all cry. We are pressing RDA to bring a group for Christmas, may be even larger, so watch out Ray we will be on at you again! Wonderful farm and recommend it to everyone.
Julia and Beccy (who is 5)