Farmer Dan's Farm Could Grow On You

HOBART - The children tumble excitedly out of school buses and station wagons, with parents and teachers in tow. They're bundled up in fall jackets and sweat shirts with hoods, like large, colorful leaves fumbling about in an autumn wind. When they see the whole farm spread out in front of them, their eyes open up as wide as, well, pumpkins.

Pumpkins are everywhere. One for everyone. Sunflowers, too - huge ones. Funny-looking scarecrows, and pigs and goats and cows and rabbits and turkeys that try to peck at your finger.

Wow!

Now in its 10th year as a farm for children, Farmer Dan's Pumpkin Patch is just about everything a kid could want in a farm. It has animals to pet and pumpkins to pick and, perhaps best of all, there's a hay barn to play in.

When Farmer Shannon - all the guides here are called Farmer - tells a group of preschool children that they'll get to bury their teacher in hay at the end of the tour, it's easy to spot, by their mischievous grins, the children most likely to develop a continuing relationship with their principals.

"They all get to bury their teachers in hay - that's part of the deal," said Farmer Dan, known to a few as Dan Lawrence. "We warn the teachers."

The requirement didn't faze teacher Elva White, visiting recently with children from Kentview Christian School.

"The kids love it," she said, although she did admit it can be a little scratchy for the teacher.

Parents looking for a way to spend a fall day with their children might be reassured to know that they'll be under no such obligations to submit to a hay-dousing if they visit Farmer Dan's. In fact, there are no obligations at all involved in a trip to Farmer Dan's - there's not even any charge to wander around the farm.

"We just hope they buy something," said Farmer Dan. "After all, it is a pumpkin farm."

Farmer Dan himself is a jovial host, who genuinely beams as children stagger out of his fields under the weight of the biggest pumpkins they can carry. He seems a natural in his role. Who would guess that in a previous life this plaid-shirted and rubber-booted farmer was a real-estate agent?

The success of Farmer Dan's Pumpkin Patch, and his transformation into Farmer Dan, have has been pure serendipity, Lawrence said.

He and his wife were looking for a house on a few acres, a little bit of countryside to call their own. Instead, they found a run-down house on 20 acres. Or maybe it found them.

"I had no background in farming, absolutely none," he said. "It came with three cows . . . That first day I was out chasing the cows down the street, because they broke out of the barbed wire."

For a while after they had their first child, they tried the two-working-parents parent routine. They didn't like it. So Lawrence decided to stay at home while his wife continued to work.

He started teaching preschool part time, when one day he brought the class out to his house to pick some pumpkins. Word spread. Other teachers wanted to bring their classes to the farm, and in a few years Lawrence was herding groups through full time.full-time. The name Farmer Dan, supplied by a parent on that first trip, stuck.

There's no need to make reservations at Farmer Dan's.

It's set in the Hobart countryside, so just driving there can be a welcome change of scenery, especially for those whose normal scenery is more likely to include a Circle K than a pile of hay.

The farm is open to the public weekdays from 2 to 5 p.m. and on weekends from 10 a.m. to dusk. Parking and admission is free, and there are refreshments for sale.

For information about bringing school groups, call 432-1705.

Got a great idea for a local getaway? Give us a call at 946-3970 or write to us at South County Life, 31620 23rd Ave. S., Suite 312, Federal Way, WA 98003.

FARMER DAN'S PUMPKIN FARM

-- If you go: From Highway 18 or 276th Avenue Southeast (Issaquah-Hobart Road), take Southeast 200th Street to 272nd, turn north on 272nd Avenue Southeast. Then follow the orange pumpkins to Farmer Dan's, located at 26634 S.E. 196th St.