Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 126 of the Listening Time podcast.
I hope you're all doing well at the time of recording this.
It's autumn, it's fall, it's It's the beginning of this season.
If you're listening in the Northern Hemisphere, then it will be autumn when this episode is released, for you too.
But if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, then of course it won't be autumn.
But I'm talking about that because today is an autumn themed episode.
This is an episode about pumpkin patches.
So some of you might not know what pumpkin patches are.
Let me just explain that really quickly.
A pumpkin patch is an event that is temporary.
We only have them during this season, during autumn, usually the whole month of October and maybe a couple days at the end of September too.
So they are temporary events where a certain space is dedicated to become a pumpkin patch, and so there are many pumpkins that are grown there, on a little farm maybe.
Not all of the pumpkin patches have this farm, but some of them do, a lot of them do, and there are pumpkins growing there, and there is also a big space for a lot of autumn-related activities, a lot of things that are really fun for kids and even for adults.
And so these places are called pumpkin patches, and it is one of the most autumn themed things you can think of.
This is the type of activity that you want to do with your whole family to really get the feeling of the season, the fall feeling.
And And I actually went to a pumpkin patch just a few days ago.
So I'll talk a little bit about that and about pumpkin patches in general.
And I'm sure this will be a very informative episode for you.
Something that's informative is something that's educational.
You learn information from that.
So this will be an educational topic.
You'll learn a lot about pumpkin patches.
And I prefer to talk about pumpkin patches rather than Halloween.
A lot of you ask for this type of episode, a Halloween episode.
I don't like Halloween.
I don't celebrate it.
I'm not interested in it at all.
So that's why I don't like to do episodes on Halloween during this part of the year.
But pumpkin patches are equally as interesting, in my opinion.
So I think that you'll enjoy this episode today.
Before we continue on, Remember that my U.S.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk a little bit about pumpkin patches.
First of all, it's important to know that the United States is obsessed with pumpkins during autumn.
So, if you come to the United States during this season, you're gonna see pumpkins everywhere.
You're gonna see pumpkins used for decoration.
People might have pumpkins around their house and in their yards and people use pumpkins to decorate their house and create the autumn flavor for that season right.
And speaking of flavor, we use pumpkins literally for flavor.
So there are a lot of food items and dessert items that include pumpkin or pumpkin seeds, right?
And drinks can also be pumpkin flavored.
We have a famous drink called the pumpkin spice latte, which people get during this season every year.
And so, as you can see, there are many things that involve pumpkins around this time.
So that's another reason why people love to go to pumpkin patches, because there are tons and tons of pumpkins there.
And actually, people go to pumpkin patches to buy their pumpkins.
That's really one of the main reasons that people might go, because they sell pumpkins there and you can go and choose your own pumpkin from the pumpkin farm that they have if they have a little pumpkin farm there and they have all different sizes and shapes and you can go and choose your pumpkin with your family.
It's a nice activity for kids especially.
And it's very similar to the activity that we have around the Christmas season, where people go to choose their Christmas tree.
So this is akin to that.
By the way, when we say that something is akin to something else, we're saying that it's similar to that other thing.
So choosing your pumpkin at pumpkin patches is akin to choosing your Christmas tree during the Christmas season.
And in fact, a lot of these pumpkin patches actually become Christmas tree farms just a month later.
So they serve both purposes sometimes.
So this is something really fun for the family to go and choose their pumpkin and just to see all of the pumpkins there at the pumpkin farm.
And at the pumpkin patch that we went to last week they also had sunflowers growing and you're able to cut your own sunflower and take that home with you.
So they might have more things growing than just pumpkins.
They might have sunflowers or other things as well.
So that's one of the main reasons that people go to pumpkin farms.
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But let me also talk about the different activities that pumpkin patches offer.
So there are many things that you can do, things for kids or things for the whole family.
So one of them is that many pumpkin patches offer train rides.
This is a very small train.
It's not a real train, of course.
It's a small mechanical train that goes around the tracks in a circle.
By the way, the word tracks refers to the thing where the train rolls on, right?
It goes on these tracks and that's how it moves.
This thing on the ground, these are the tracks.
So the train moves along the tracks and goes in a circle, and it's just for little kids, usually.
So adults can't go on this ride, and I mention that in particular because my son went on this train ride last week and And he didn't know that we weren't gonna accompany him.
By the way, the word accompany means that you go with someone or something.
So he didn't know that we weren't gonna accompany him.
He didn't know that we weren't gonna ride with him on the train.
And so he was super excited before he got on the train, because if you don't have kids, you might not know this, but little boys usually love trains.
A lot of them are obsessed with trains.
So my son was super excited to ride on this train.
But when he realized that I wasn't going to get on with him, he started crying and screaming.
But it was too late.
The train had already started and it took five laps around the track.
By the way, the word lap in this context refers to when something goes in a complete circle around something else.
So you can run laps around the track or the field, for example.
So this train went around five times.
It took five laps.
And my son was crying and screaming this whole time.
It was sad but it was kind of funny for the other people to see this, because it was kind of a funny sight to see this kid crying on the train going around, whereas normally kids are really happy to be on these trains.
So it was sad and a little funny to see, but more sad and he didn't enjoy it.
It was a waste and so now we know next time that we're not gonna put him on this train because he doesn't want to go alone.
So that was kind of a failure, but most kids love it.
And on this train in particular, if the kid sits in the front in the first cart, then they can also ring the bell on the train.
And kids love that too.
So the train ride is one of the activities that people like at Pumpkin Patches.
And another one is the petting zoo.
So my son went on the train ride first and then he went to the petting zoo after that.
And he loved it.
So all his tears went away and he was smiling and laughing for the next 20 minutes or so.
What is a petting zoo?
A petting zoo is a small area where kids and adults can go inside and feed and pet certain animals, usually goats.
This is probably the most common animal that you find at petting zoos.
There might also be other animals, maybe sheep.
I'm not sure what other animals.
But at this petting zoo, there were many goats.
And before we went, I had the feeling that my son was going to like this, because a couple weeks ago we saw a couple goats that were being loaded into a truck and my son was really intrigued by these goats.
The word intrigued means that you're really interested in something.
So my son was really intrigued when he saw these goats, and he acted in a way that I hadn't seen him act before.
And he seemed really fascinated by them.
And so when we went to this pumpkin patch, I had the feeling that my son was going to really like going to the petting zoo to see these goats.
And I was right.
He absolutely loved it.
He had the time of his life in this petting zoo, surrounded by goats, and he just tried to pet each one.
And by the way, when you pet an animal, this means that you run your hand across its fur or hair.
This is petting an animal.
So he pet all of these goats.
He watched them run around.
He didn't feed them.
We thought that that might be a little too intimidating for him to feed the animals.
Maybe next time we'll do it, because he did really well at the petting zoo this time, so maybe he'll be able to feed them next time.
And he didn't seem scared at all, even though there were goats all around him.
And some of them were pretty big.
There were goats of all different sizes.
There were a couple pregnant goats, too.
That was pretty interesting.
And some baby goats that had a lot of energy and were running around the whole petting zoo area.
But my son wasn't scared.
He did really well, so that was a big success.
We're definitely gonna take him to more petting zoos in the future, so that's another really cool activity.
Another one is the hayride.
So hay refers to dried grass that's used to feed farm animals.
So a hayride is an event where a tractor pulls a wagon or a cart behind it and that wagon or cart is loaded with hay.
When something is loaded with something else, we're just saying that it is filled with this thing.
So it's loaded with hay.
It's filled with hay so that you can sit down comfortably on it.
And then the tractor takes you around the pumpkin patch.
This is a classic pumpkin patch activity.
And it's a great one for kids, because if you have kids, then you might know this that they usually, especially boys, love tractors.
Tractors are something very interesting with their big wheels.
Little boys tend to love that.
So we didn't do this when we went to the pumpkin patch this last time.
However, we'll do that next time because my son definitely wanted to do it.
He saw the big wheels on the tractor and he was indicating that he was interested in getting on.
So we'll do that next time.
And this will be better than the train ride because adults can go on the hayride, so that will be better for my son and I.
Looked up the origin of these hayrides and in the past farm workers used to ride on these wagons loaded with hay or other things and they would ride back to the barn to unload the hay.
And this ride was one of the only times when they could just rest and rest.
They didn't need to do anything because being a farm worker is really hard work and it was really hard work in the past and this tradition started from this activity, where these farm workers were able to rest on on the hay in the wagon as they drove back to the barn after a hard day of work, for example.
So that somehow got adopted by these pumpkin patches and now it's a classic tradition that people do with their families.
And one other really classic tradition at Pumpkin Patches, a classic activity, is the corn maze.
So a maze is a labyrinth, right?
It's something where you enter and then you have to find the exit.
But it's difficult because there are many different paths that you can take and you get lost.
This is a maze.
So one of the most popular activities that you can do at Pumpkin Patches is doing the corn maze.
You enter in and then you have to find the exit.
It's really fun.
There are different levels of difficulty depending on the pumpkin patch.
Some corn mazes are much harder than others and they can even be stressful sometimes, if they're really hard.
I remember going in a corn maze some years ago when I was in college And it was extremely difficult.
It took a long time to find the exit.
And it got a little bit stressful because you get a little bit desperate when you're lost in this labyrinth and you have no idea where you are and you can't see the exit and the walls are really really high so you can't jump up and try to see where you are and I remember that it took me a long time to get out of this maze.
So some of them can be pretty difficult and others are easier and maybe more adequate or appropriate for kids.
But this is a really fun activity.
I love this idea.
I think it's a super cool tradition to go through this maze.
I think it's a very unique thing.
There's really nothing else like that to go through a human maze where you're the person walking around and trying to find the exit.
That's super cool, in my opinion.
And there are other activities as well.
For example, some pumpkin patches have pony rides.
A pony is a small breed of horse.
So kids can sometimes ride these ponies at pumpkin patches.
That's something really fun as well.
And a lot of these pumpkin patches have these things.
I don't know what they're called, but I'll describe them.
They are like boards of wood with some type of painting, like maybe of a pig, for example.
And then instead of the face, there's a hole in this board.
And the kid can go behind the board and stick their head through the hole.
And then their parents can take pictures of them.
So it looks like the kid's face is where the pig's face is supposed to be.
I think you know what I'm talking about.
The pumpkin patch that we went to last week had several different types of these things, and that was also fun for my son.
He wanted to take these pictures and then see himself in the pictures afterwards.
So that's another fun activity.
And there are other activities as well, just depending on which pumpkin patch you go to.
But they're all really fun.
And lastly, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the decoration at these pumpkin patches.
They're decorated in a really cool color. autumn fashion.
So they feel completely fall themed.
So all of the fall colors are there.
They're orange and brown and yellow and red. all of these autumn colors.
There are pumpkins and squashes everywhere.
Squashes are, I think, the general term for a lot of different things like pumpkins and other types of similar things.
I think they're all classified as squashes, if I'm not mistaken.
So there are different decorative squashes and pumpkins of different colors and shapes and sizes and they're used to decorate.
And there's hay everywhere.
Remember that I mentioned that hay is this dry, yellow grass.
So there's hay everywhere.
There are scarecrows.
These are those things that farmers use to scare away the crows or other birds from their farm right.
These fake human-looking things that you put on a big stick in your farm.
So there are scarecrows at pumpkin patches as well.
And there are nice lights to illuminate everything when the sun goes down.
And it just feels really cool.
There's kind of a romantic fall feeling to Pumpkin Patches.
It feels like autumn.
It's really just a great image of this whole season.
So that was a little bit about pumpkin patches in the US.
I hope that you learned something today and I hope that this topic was interesting for you.
Remember to sign up for my US Conversations podcast if you're ready to practice with real conversations between native speakers.
I talk to people from all over the country and we have natural conversations and I provide the transcript with definitions of keywords.
So if you're interested in that, make sure to sign up.
The link is in the description below this episode.
That's patreon.com slash us conversations.
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Alright, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
