One sunny October day, twenty-six five and six year old children,
several family members, and two teachers excitedly disembarked from a big
yellow schoolbus at Carrigan Farms. First, we picked a cool spot
to eat under a droopy willow tree beside a pond with water as green as
pea soup. We plopped down on the grassy hill and slowly ate our picnic
lunches. We were sitting on a three hundred sixty acre farm.
Each acre of land is about the size of a football field. That's a
really big farm!
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Next we met the farm's owner, Doug Carrigan, to learn about the interesting
history of this family farm. We learned that the land was once a
village known as "Deep Well." We saw the covered well and were amazed
to find out more about the development of this land. We found that
slaves of earlier times probably built this well from rocks found in a
rock quarry in a different area of the farmland. |
Originally, two trading paths and then wagon roads formed an X here
at this property. It was customary in rural areas like this, to build
a general store to meet the needs of the surrounding area for food, sugar,
salt, and dry goods. In the 1850's a store was built here at Deep
Well, which is now Carrigan Farms. During the Civil War, the store
also became a post office. Today, North Carolina Highway 150 and
North Carolina Highway 152 intersect just east of Mooresville, North Carolina.
Now, Carrigan Farms produces crisp Golden and Red Delicious apples,
juicy peaches, nutritious vegetables like green asparagus, fall pumpkins
of all sizes, and beautiful red Christmas flowers called poinsettias.
Hundreds of school children visit the "Pumpkin Patch" each year.
| Finally, it was time to go on a hayride around the huge farm.
We quickly climbed up on a big wagon full of dry, scratchy hay. We
listened as the red-orange tractor cranked up; and we held on tightly as
it pulled us along the bumpy dirt roads. We saw busy bee hives where
the female honeybees worked hard to make sweet, golden honey. We
passed ten greenhouses with round plastic roofs where baby plants grew
protected and warm inside the buildings. Lucy, the brown shaggy family
dog, barked a friendly hello as she raced off to swim and cool off in one
of the three ponds on the property. |
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Suddenly, we were passing the apple orchard, where small red or yellow
apples hung among some dark rotten ones. The brown, red, and yellow
leaves hung dry and crisp on gnarled gray branches of dwarf trees so small
that an average size adult could reach an apple on the tip-top of the tree.
The next two orchards we passed were full of larger peach trees which
were well past their prime. The fall leaves were dull shades of gray,
brown, and some green. The many branched trees were much fuller than
the apple trees. They grew like large bushes close together in fields
of grass that were also losing most of their summer green. Between
the leaves and among the grasses, we could occasionally glimpse a smelly,
rotting peach.
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Next stop was the place where a barn and barnyard had once held the
farm's animals. Unfortunately, a fierce hurricane had completely
destroyed the barn and now there was only a small fenced-in shelter which
held a few animals borrowed from neighbor's farms. We gently petted
and gingerly fed the soft brown and tan pony with big, brown eyes covered
with a white fluffy mane. |
| A woolly mother sheep and her baby lamb sniffed at Catherine. |
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| Janice and Kelly liked the spotted goat who stood up high on a box
to see us. |
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A lazy brown cow closed her eyes as she lay in the warm sunshine
ignoring us. |
| We loved the dirty little pink pig with his curly tail.
Soon it was time to jump back on the wagon for another short ride. |
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As the squeaky wagon rounded the corner, children smiled to see the
twenty five acre pumpkin patch. Green leafy vines produced little
green pumpkins which grew into larger yellow pumpkins, and finally into
big orange pumpkins. We happily ran through the hilly dirt rows,
searching the field for the perfect pumpkin. The only rule was that
it must be a size that you could carry all alone. We gazed at horses
at the edge of the field eating smashed, over-ripe, and rotting pumpkins.
We stayed away from the mushy, smelly pieces in between the array of green,
yellow, and orange round fruits of the gourd family. We each found
the perfect pumpkin and carefully lifted it up to the wagon. We wondered
if it would become a delicious pie, spicy cookies, or a scary jack-o-lantern
for Halloween. |
| We waved to everyone as we came back to the farmhouse yard. We
examined rusty old machinery, tractors, red barns, wooden storage sheds,
and a rusty silo. We looked at the front of the peeling white farmhouse
with its faded green shutters and white column porches. We decided
the green roof was in good shape, but there were a lot of repairs and painting
that needed doing. Wonder what a showpiece this was when it was first
built? |
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We were treated with a cup of cool apple cider made from the farm's
apples before we started our bus ride back to school. It had been
a fun fall day at Carrigan Farms!
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