Mudberry Farms

Now that Halloween’s over, let me take a little time to tell you about all the Halloween events we did this year. I’ll do it in separate posts. I have more photos but Blogger is being uncooperative and I'll add them later.

Saturday, October 21. Dewberry Farms is a place about 25 minutes west of Houston. Nora had read about it on the internet and wanted to check it out. It certainly sounded interesting—a pumpkin patch, hayrides, activities for kids, and best of all a huge maze made in a corn field. We planned to go: Nora, her son, her sister, her niece, my daughter, and me.

It had been raining, so Nora called ahead to make sure that it wouldn’t be too muddy. They assured us it was fine and to come on out. We asked what time it was closing; they said 9:00 pm. We got there about 5:30. Dewberry Farms is expansive land with some thinly spread activity centers. Right at the entrance there is a ticket office, dining area, and gift shop all connected by a sidewalk. Walking through that area, there’s a moon bounce thing to the immediate left for the smaller kids, and a contraption similar to a swing but with sandbags instead of seats. Further out past that are some upended wooden wheels large enough to stand in. People would get inside and walk back and forth. They looked like hamster wheels. To the right, a sidewalk led to a display of animatronic singing chickens like what you might find in a Chuck E. Cheese. Beyond that is a small bike track with some oversized tricycles for the kids. In the very back are trucks for the hayrides that take people to the pumpkin patch. In between it all, or course, there were patches of mud. Generally people could get around it by carefully choosing our path, but some kids were caked in it so badly they looked like they’d absconded from the Romper Room Health Spa.

The kids went straight for the moon bounce. Then they wanted to try the sandbag swings. But when we got over to them we saw that the ground beneath was covered in thick mud. This added a new dimension to the whole swing experience: if you can’t stay on the sandbag seat, you get a buttfull of mud! So we talked them into going over to the hamster wheels instead. Clearly, I hadn’t thought this through. Walk through mud to stand inside a hamster wheel. Mud gets on the bottom of the hamster wheel. Walk around. The mud rotates to the top of the hamster wheel and falls on your head, and then back to the bottom of the wheel. Walk some more, and the process repeats. Fun!

The girls needed to go to the bathroom to wash mud off themselves, so we went over to the bathrooms. Turns out there were no napkins and no toilet paper. I complained to a man working at the nearby snack area. He was a friendly sort who let me know that he wasn’t surprised, and that there had been a lot of people there that day, and they had been cleaned out. I waited for him to say something like “I’ll send someone to go get these necessary items.” But he didn’t. If we needed toilet paper, it seemed we would have to improvise with something from the corn maze.

In case you hadn’t guessed by now, I was ready to go. But I didn’t want to be a stick in the mud (Ha!) so I mostly kept quiet. We stopped to eat some dinner, and by then it was getting very dark. There were no park lights or anything. People were carrying flashlights. We decided to take a hayride. They informed us the hayrides closed at 6:00. What? We were told everything was open till 9:00! OK, whatever. We walked over to the tricycles. Also closed. We put the girls on the trikes anyway and encouraged them to go ahead and do a lap, if they wanted. A volunteer came running over and telling us this area was closed at 6:00 and we couldn’t let them ride because it was too dark and the farm didn’t want to be liable for any injuries. We complained that we were told everything was open till 9:00 and again, we got the “Who told you that? That’s not right” speech.

Finally, we decided to at least try the maze. That wasn’t closed. We walked over to the entrance to the maze and peered inside. By now it was completely dark. People going into the maze carried flashlights, creating an eerie, uneven light that shifted and moved like a thing alive. By this light we could see that the maze had standing water and deep, soft mud that slurped hungrily at the heels of those foolish enough to wander in. People were sinking into the mud halfway to their knees.

This was too much. We went to the gift shop and complained that (1) we were told everything was open till 9:00, and (2) that there wasn’t going to be mud. I didn’t think to mention the toilet paper issue, but I suppose I should have. They gave us our money back and we went to IHOP for some pancakes and hot coffee.