Fairy Tale Farming

Past the Austin city limits on a winding road over hilly country is a lovely place called Sweet Berry Farm where cheerful farmers wear neon safety vests and no one steps in manure.


Sweet Berry Farm  becomes a fake farm every fall, because fake farms are very popular in October.  They swarm with pumpkins, good will and face painting.  Fake farms do not need government payments for not producing pumpkins. They break out rusty tractors to pull open trailers full of hale bales and sneezing children.

Somehow you feel compelled 
to buy food to feed their greedy goats

 

You are lured into trailers by enticing and oddly shaped vegetables to sit on scratchy hay bales

The youngest are lulled to sleep by the sounds of 
slurping cider and pockets being emptied of money

 

The fields are full of zinnias, 

but they may actually be poppies in disguise 

because we all felt a little high after strolling through

When I grow up, I'm going to live on a fake farm