Here at Old Macdonalds Farm we are all looking forward to the annual Catapult Pumpkin Competition during our Half Term Halloween Festival. This time last year 4 year old Charlotte’s imaginative, if rather strange, idea for our recycling contest won an annual pass for designing something we can use on the farm using recycled products and devised a Catapult built on a tractor! We expected something to do with homes for our animals, not a weapon of mass vegetable destruction, but loved it and built it.
Now a highlight of our October Half Term Halloween Festival is the Pumpkin firing contest, and to enter you must email us at once with your details and a day between 27th October and 31st when you can come here between 2 and 4 and bring a pumpkin, and a child, and we will fire the pumpkin at our Witchy Target down the farm, the nearest to it qualifying for our grand Halloween Night Final. (When I said we are all looking forward to it, the Witch is not so sure!) There is no charge to enter but you must first book, confirm the date and time with us, then bring along your pumpkin!
Old Macdonald has now turned his thoughts to the 2008 competition for children, and adults too, and has reached his decision. He went to the shops the other day to buy rice, cornflakes and milk, then returned to glance at our website and watch TV. He was amazed at how much the price of food had gone up recently (rice he says has doubled in the local shops, and he would know because he does count the coppers) and saw on TV that in many of the rice growing countries it has gone up by 400%! He read our website story about amphibians losing their homes because of action by humans, and saw on the BBC that Orangutan forests are being cut down to grow Palm Oil Trees. He was also shocked at the fate of the Sumatran Rhino, as there are very few left in the world today.
So he thought he would get you all to send him stories and pictures of animals and creatures around the world that are under threat because of mankind’s desire to grow more food and other products, and also information on countries where rice, wheat, maize and other crops are grown and how much prices are going up in these. By the way, World Orangutan Day is November 14th. (We pass our thanks to the photographers for the images above which we hope help illustrate these magnificent animals)
Old Macdonald will then build a giant map of the world, using recycled products, and put your stories and pictures on it. The pictures can be photos or drawings, and anyone can enter. The person who sends in the best story and illustrations will win an annual pass for their family and all entries will be here on the website with the names of those who sent them in plus we will send a day pass to their family. We also invite schools to take this on as a project, and if any school class sends in a number of entries we will give them a free day out at the farm. We at the farm will then raise money to help with preservation projects for these threatened creatures.
So, why not enter this important contest so that you, and we, can learn about our world and the impact of food agriculture on our fellow creatures? Now read on for the story of the creation and building of the amazing, if slightly silly, device that won last year. (more…)
