Wow! It has been a BUSY place here on the Farm these last few months! Our Fall Festival was a HUGE SUCCESS, thanks to you our guests and to our wonderful staff of employees!!! We are so blessed to have such great customers and employees here at Bloomsbury Farm! October was here and gone way to quickly! But we loved every minute of it! Our haunted attraction, Scream Acres, was a monumental success as well! We couldn’t have asked for better weather for both our daytime and nighttime business! We had a super crew of actors for Scream Acres this year! Over 50 actors came each night to scare-the-pants-off our customers! The two indoor haunts were awesome! And the great new scenes throughout the Haunt were super-terrifying as well! All-in-all, we had a wonderful Fall season here at Bloomsbury Farm! It was as close to perfect as it can get! We can’t wait until we can do it all over again next year!

Once October ended, it was time to begin tear-down. Our crew worked diligently to get everything put away for the winter. Dave and his guys were also hard at work getting the rest of the crops in before winter. Once everybody got done with their respective duties, Dave had another task for us to begin…renovating a house! That’s right, we have all become proficient Do-It-Yourself-ers as we have all been working together to completely re-do a small farmhouse owned by Dave’s family. It’s been quite a learning experience, I must say, as well as a ball of fun!

We sure are ready for the snow to fly here at the Farm! Dave’s got all of the snowmobiles ready to run, and the guys are just itchin’ to get out and ride them! The girls are home for Christmas Break and I’m sure they can’t wait to take the sleds for a ride either! Well, I think I should wrap this up, I see a game of Bean-Bag Toss has started-up in the shop and I think I will go join the fun!

Happy Holidays!!
Karen Petersen

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! Fall has arrived and Bloomsbury Farm is rockin’! We are now open from 9am-6pm every Monday through Saturday, and 11am-5pm on Sundays! We have many new and exciting things here at Bloomsbury Farm this year, but don’t forget about all of the fun and unique activities we still have from last year! With two concession stands, two corn mazes, a paintball shooting gallery, and yummy fresh fudge and caramel apples, Bloomsbury Farm is the perfect place for your next family, group, or corporate outing! One great thing we’ve added this year is Online Ticketing! You can now purchase admission tickets to Bloomsbury Farm (and Scream Acres) through our website! Our $1 Off Admission coupon even works online – just enter “FarmFun” in the coupon field at checkout! Soon we will have the Pumpkin Blaster out! I can’t wait to shoot some pumpkins! And the Pig Races will begin soon too! Well, I had better get back to dipping these caramel apples! Have a great week!!

Karen Petersen =)

Delicious Hand-Dipped Caramel Apples!

Wow it sure has been a busy month here at Bloomsbury Farm! We have hosted two unique events here in the past month – a Murder Mystery Dinner Theater on August 13th and Cuisine in the Corn on August 27th. Both events were a HUGE SUCCESS! Thank You to EVERYONE who helped us to make these two events happen!

We have also been busy setting up our new attractions for 2011! In addition to our Giant Rocking Chair, we also have a 16-foot Rope Spider Web and a Lil’ Farmer John Deere Tractor for the youngsters! And our most exciting addition to the Farm….Paintball! This year we are proud to announce the addition of the Dry Creek Paintball Shooting Gallery! For a small additional charge, you can test your aim and take a shot at our various targets set up in the cornfield! Next year we plan to also offer games of Paintball, where you can play an actual game of paintball with your friends or co-workers!

Coming up this next weekend we will be hosting our first annual Bloomsbury Farm Music Fest to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association! We’ve got 7 bands lined up, and the music starts at 11am on Sunday September 4th! Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the door. Also be sure to sign up for our Bean-Bag Tournament, sponsored by Neon Dragon, when you get here!

Speaking of upcoming events, we are hosting Breakfast With the Pumpkin Princess on October 22! Check out our website for more info on this event!

We are also busy getting ready to make a whole lotta’ fudge and caramel apples for the upcoming season! We open on September 3rd!! We hope to see you here!!

Karen

Boy it sure is a hot one out there today!! I guess that’s what July in Iowa is supposed to feel like! The corn sure likes this hot muggy weather, that’s for sure! We had a little scare there last week with the bad storm that came through. Some of our corn got damaged, but it seems to be coming back nicely. I sure do have sympathy for those poor farmers who had more damage than we did! Hopefully they will be able to recover!

It’s been a busy July here at Bloomsbury Farm! Karen and her staff have been busy planning multiple upcoming Events for the Farm. We will be hosting a Murder Mystery Dinner Theater on August 13 (by reservation only), a unique dinner in the cornfield called Cuisine in the Corn on August 27 (by reservation only), and a Music Fest on September 4th! Cuisine in the Corn will benefit Four Oaks, our partner for the 10-acre Corn Maze this year, and the Bloomsbury Farm Music Fest will benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association, our partner for the 2011 4-acre Kid’s Maze. If you’d like more info on any of these events, or if you’d like to make a reservation, please contact Karen@BloomsburyFarm.com!

Some other exciting news from Karen’s end of the business: we now have a NEW WEBSITE for Bloomsbury Farm!! It can still be found at www.BloomsburyFarm.com, but it has been completely re-designed and updated! Let us know what you think of the new website by posting on our Facebook Wall (www.Facebook.com/BloomsburyFarm)!

We are also working on renovating our Dred Shed! Joe, Noah, Jay, Charley, and Dan have been busy out there gutting the contents and coming up with creative and terrifying (but don’t worry, it will still be family-friendly during the day) new ideas for 2011!! We will be building Curtain Chaos soon too! Wow, can you believe it will be Haunt time soon?! Well I suppose I should get back out there and continue building!!

Stay cool!!
Dave

Iowa Summer is in full swing here at Bloomsbury Farm! The sun is shining, and the temperature is rising! It’s already 92 degrees and it’s only 2 o’clock! We might just have to go jump in the pool before the day is over.

This past weekend Rick, Noah, Carissa, and I went to the Downtown Cedar Rapids Farmer’s Market. We sold homemade fudge, caramel apples, and cinnamon-sugar glazed almonds, pecans, and cashews. We had a blast! We’ll be back there again on July 2nd, so be sure to come down and see us (and maybe even try a free sample or two!)

Tomorrow we will be planting our pumpkins for this year!! How exciting! We will be planting 10 acres of pumpkins this year! That should produce a bountiful crop for us this fall! Daniel is working on getting the planter changed over to Pumpkin-Mode. Watch for pictures of how we sit on the seats he is making and ride on the planter (which Farmer Dave also uses to plant his corn and soybeans).

We are also getting ready for our first ever Cornelius Cobb’s Family Day this Saturday! The Farm will be open from 9am-3pm for families to come and play! Admission will be $7 per person age 3 and older, and will include the Jumping Pillow, Barrel Train, Hayrack Rides, and all of the other usual activities on the Farm! Gemstone Mining will be the only additional charge ($5 per bag of mining rough). The Pumpkin Grill will also be serving light concessions for those who wish to eat.

One last bit of exciting new this month: we have chosen the design for our two corn mazes this year! The large 10-acre maze will feature the beautiful logo of Four Oaks. Four Oaks, a non-profit child welfare, juvenile justice, and behavioral health agency founded in 1973 and headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, offers services to children and families in all 99 Iowa counties. Four Oaks, and its affiliates, serves more than 14,000 people annually throughout the state. Four Oaks carries out its mission to “assure children become successful adults” by providing holistic prevention, intervention, and treatment programs and services.

The 4-acre kid’s maze will feature a design honoring the Muscular Dystrophy Association. MDA is the nonprofit health agency dedicated to curing muscular dystrophy, ALS, and related diseases by funding worldwide research. The Association also provides comprehensive health care and support services, advocacy and education. MDA combats neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research, comprehensive medical and support services, and far-reaching professional and public health education.

We are so excited to be working with these two amazing groups, dedicated to helping improve our communities and ultimately our world!

It’s almost summertime here at Bloomsbury Farm! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the sounds of joyful children fill the air! We’ve got a group of school kids here today for one of our Spring Tours. They are having a blast bouncing on the Jumping Pillow, playing in the Corn Box, feeding the animals with Uncle Paul, and going on hayrack rides! They even get to pot up a pretty flower to take home with them!
It’s been quite an eventful Spring here on the Farm so far. We hosted a Breakfast With the Easter Bunny in April. That was a HUGE success! Thank you to everyone who came and ate breakfast with the Easter Bunny! We sure enjoyed that event! We are looking forward to our upcoming Cornelius Cobb’s Family Days in June, July, and August! If you’d like more info on those let me know! (Karen@BloomsburyFarm.com or 319-446-7667).
Carissa and I will begin planting all of our beautiful flowers around the farm this month. I can’t wait to see all of the beautiful colors when I look around the farm! We will also be making fudge to take to the Downtown Farmers Market in Cedar Rapids on June 4th. Come on down and try a free sample!
Dave has been busy in the field the past few weeks. He is done planting all of the corn for the year, and is working at planting the rest of the soybeans. Just think, in four months we will be harvesting all of those acres! Next comes spraying for him. That is always a big undertaking too! Good thing he has a great bunch of guys to help him!
Well, I think it’s time for me to go give a talk about farming to the youngsters here on the fieldtrip! Thanks for reading!

Karen Petersen =)

April showers bring May flowers! And I can’t wait to start planting those flowers! Dave is ready to start planting his crops, too! Daniel got the planter out the other day and has started getting it all cleaned up and ready to go. Hopefully they will start planting corn within the next couple of weeks!

Dave, Daniel, Charlie and the guys have been working at cementing and insulating the back part of the machine shop. It should be done in the next week or so. It will be great to have heat back there this fall and winter!

Carissa and I have been busy planning new and exciting events for our upcoming Summer Season. On April 23rd we will be hosting a Breakfast With the Easter Bunny event here at the Farm. Shoot me an email at Karen@BloomsburyFarm.com if you’d like more info on that. We are also excited about our new Cornelius Cobb’s Family Day that we will host in June, July, and August. One Saturday each of those months we will open the Farm up for General Admission. Be sure to sign up to receive our monthly E-Mails detailing all of our upcoming events. You can find the “Join Our Mailing List” button on our website and Facebook Page.

I am sure glad that the snow is finally gone! Now we can start building our new attractions for 2011! We will be installing a Giant Spider Web, Wooden Tractor and Hayrack, and even a Giant Rocking Chair to climb on and take pictures with!

Well, time to get to work! Bye!

Karen

Giant Rocking Chair

Hey there Bloomsbury Farm Blog readers! Man, has it been a busy winter! Karen and I have kept busy attending conferences and planning the newest attractions for the Farm this year. We are just getting home from the MAIZE Conference this week. We went all the way to Raleigh, North Carolina for a week to attend this conference. We met up with many of our friends and fellow corn maze owners from across the country to discuss new attractions, maze games, and haunt ideas. And to just have a good time together!
Now we get to stay home for two weeks, then we’re on the road again! This time we’ll be headed to St. Louis for the annual Haunt Show in mid March. Karen and I will take our Haunt Managers, Joe, Dan, and Andy, along to look for new costumes, sets, and ideas for Scream Acres 2011. The Haunt Show is always a good time; you can never have too much blood, gore, and terrifying creatures of the night!
We are looking forward to the next few months. There will be lots of Spring Cleaning to be done around here. It will be nice to see the Farm up and running again! And soon it will be time to get in the fields again! Man I can’t wait!

Dave

It’s been a busy start to Winter here on the Farm! Dave and I attended the IAAPA Conference in Orlando last month. We gained a lot of new ideas for Bloomsbury this Fall. Earlier this month Julie, Carissa, Bunny, and I spent a week making and packaging fudge to be shipped to customers all over the Cedar Rapids area. Dave has been busy planning out his crop acres for next year. He has ordered seed and has been checking over all of the equipment. Daniel has been hauling grain to town the past few weeks. And Carissa and I are busy preparing a presentation for the Wisconsin Fruit and Vegetable Grower’s Association conference in January.
Dave and I are planning to make a few new additions to Bloomsbury for the upcoming Fall season. We plan to sell fresh Bavarian Roasted Nuts next year. We have also purchased a new attraction for visitors to climb on that resembles a gigantic spider web. In addition, we are purchasing a second fudge kettle to keep up with our ever-increasing sales of fresh fudge!
Well, I think I need to get back to working on that presentation! Happy Holidays to you and your families and we look forward to seeing you in the Fall of 2011!!!

Happy New Year!
Karen

Bloomsbury Farm opens to the public on September 4, 2010, less than 30 days away, and we are running around trying to get everything ready for opening day.

Paul is mowing 40 acres on a weekly basis. Of course, he doesn’t mow all 40 acres in one day, but by the time he is finished with the last of the 40 acres, the first of the group is ready to be mowed again. That’s called job security on the farm!

We’ve been taking the Pumpkin Blaster to various festivals around the area–Watermelon Days, the Benton County Fair and Blairstown’s Sauerkraut Days. It’s a bit early for pumpkins so we substitute watermelons. No one has complained yet!

The mazes are coming along great. The corn is now about 10 feet tall, and we are getting ready for the maze games. The Fireball Run comes through in early October! We’ll be announcing the special events as we are given permission to do so. Stay tuned . . .

Dave and Karen