A Visit To Billingsgate Farm In Plympton

from the Billingsgate Farm website

Let it be known that we favor certain local establishments in our reading area. You'll notice this as the column spills out over the years.

We regularly visit Mann Farms in Buzzards Bay, which is the source of most of our cranberry pictures. The fact that it is across the street from my neighborhood helps things along.

When I make tea for extended writing sessions, I use nothing in it but local honey made by Jenny Dee's Bees. I need to convince Jenny to bottle her honey in little plastic squeezy-bears, but that will only just improve something that is already awesome.

When I need farm stand stuff, I go to Billingsgate Farm in Plympton.

Very few and perhaps not any Shanghai tweens were injured by sweatshop drill presses making this pumpkin.

A lot of people buy their produce and even their pumpkins from Wal-Mart, and that's all well and good. We all wander into Wally now and then.

However, if doing so means that you drive by a local farm where you can take the pumpkin off the vine yourself, you're makig a great and terrible mistake.

Almost all Americans were farmers once, and the ones who weren't were almost toddler-dependent upon those who were. Times change, and we went from an agricultural nation to an industrial nation to a service economy. Farming, and the farmland, shrank away from the norm.

 Many and perhaps most Americans might not even know a farmer these days. That's a mistake, and it's one you can rectify for your family by pulling into somewhere like Billingsgate Farm.

"Massachusetts" isn't what comes to mind when you talk farms, but we have people out there putting in work. 

Your local farm stand will fill many of your culinary needs. Have no doubt that one of the important people to know during the proverbial Zombie Apocalypse would be a farmer. I'd be dead as soon as the last Pop-Tarts went bad, personally.

Not the farmer. Old McDonald, if he had enough kids and enough guns, could hold out just fine if the ship hit the fan. Well, at least he wouldn't starve.

In a more realistic scenario, we can remember the words of, uhm, somebody (editor's note: William Jennings Bryan):

"The great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms, and grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country."

You can't speak more plainly than that, player...

How do you like them apples?

It is also Ground Zero for any Halloween shopping.

Remember, Halloween is at least tied to ancient Harvest Festivals. For most of human history, communities lived or died with the quality of their harvest. You can base a pretty good short story around people who are willing to kill to see to a good harvest.

Shirley Jackson's masterpiece wouldn't work at the Market Basket, and would only work in allegory at Wal-Mart. Linus, to my knowledge, wasn't waiting for the Great Pumpkin in the parking lot at the Winn-Dixie, or however they spell that.

Linus knows enough to go right to the source. He's in a pumpkin patch. Why go anywhere else, especially some big Eastern corporation?

I may be wrong (I was born in Dorchester), but I think this is a pumpkin blossom before it gets big.

You can also get other important Halloween stuff at a farm stand. They have corn stalks, Indian corn, hay bales, and whatever else you may need.

You don't grow Mouthwash or Ceiling Fans at local farms, so I can understand why you might go to a Wal-Mart for things like that. Society is good like that, they congregate stuff you need near wherever you may be needing it.

However, if you drive by the actual Harvest to go to something with asphalt around it to get the stuff for your home's harvest season look, you're just fooling yourself... no matter what you tell yourself.

Places like Billingsgate Farm get superpowers at Halloween, too.

Sally won't come home with dirty knees from this pumpkin patch, at least in theory...

Take the whole Fam Damily down to a farm stand AT LEAST to get a pumpkin. Walking around the perimeter of a farm to get your pumpkin beats down getting one out of a box at the Target.

You'll notice that you can get them out of a big box if you really want to. Either that, or those boxes are going to whoever will be marking them up before you buy them. Why pay a middleman?

Besides, farmers often go to great lengths to get people to support their local farms. Billingsgate farm becomes a sort of low-key theme park during the harvest season.

Even before you get out of the car, you're surrounded by pumpkins and gourds of all sorts. Never underestimate how cool that is in a society that is largely suburban and urban.

Tremendous for Jack-o-Lanterns.

Billingsgate Farm goes all-in during the harvest season. Here's what this little farm is offering the community:

- A Corn Maze. They should leave it open after Halloween during blizzards for families that wish to re-enact the climax of The Shining. The GPS feature where you can find your way out of the Billingsgate Farm maze would have most likely made things end better for Jack Nicholson.

- The aforementioned pumpkin patch. If "aforementioned" doesn't mean whatever part of the story we had the pumpkin patch in, well, you know what we mean.

- A food and picnic area, if you want to stretch the trip out. You never go wrong eating right from the farm, player.

- Don't forget the Hay Rides!

Hay, Hay Hay...

Maze Hours & Admission

Be prepared to get lost on a fantastic adventure. Inside our 3-acre Maize Quest® Corn Maze, you will find twisting pathways, questions and answers, and picture rubbings. It’s a maze, it’s a game, it’s educational, and it’s FUN!

General Admission
TICKET PRICES:
Adults (13yrs and older)…………………………………….$10.95/person
Youth (3-12yrs)………………………………………………$9.95/child

> Click here to sign up for our mailing list and get $1 OFF regular admission

Discounted Prices:
Senior Citizen (65yrs and older)……………………………$8.95/person
Police/Military………………………………………………$8.95/person
Girl Scouts………………………………………………….$2 OFF admission
Bradford Inn & Suites Guests………………………………$2 OFF admission

Children 2 years and under are FREE with a paying adult
All youths must be accompanied by an adult – no exceptions!
Note: Last tickets are sold 1 hour before closing

All attractions are included in the maze admission except refreshments, pumpkins, and items at the farm stand.

Corn stalks are essential to proper Halloween decorating.

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS:
Pumpkins……………………………………………………Priced per pound

GROUPS
Visit our Groups page for discounted rates and info for groups of 15 or more.

2015 Corn Maze Operation Season & Hours
Billingsgate Corn Maze & Farm Attractions are open in the fall September 19th through November 1st.

Open Weekends Only !
Saturday & Sunday 10AM – 6PM

Groups of 15 or more may book during the week with advance registration.

Flashlight Nights (Extended Hours)
Come try our maze in the dark for a different twist – but be sure to bring a flashlight in case you “get lost”!

October 17, 2015: Open 6PM – 9PM
October 24, 2015: Open 6PM – 9PM

Special Events/Holidays
Monday, October 12th – Columbus Day (10AM – 6PM)
Sunday, November 1, 2015 – Dog Days at the Maze (10AM – 6PM) – Bring your dog to the maze!

Rules
No Alcohol allowed anywhere on the farm
Do not run in the maze.
Do not smoke in the maze.
Do not break the ribbon.
Do not cut through the corn.
Do not pick the corn.
Do not use foul language.
No pets are permitted in the maze

Learn more at Billingsgate Farm.com

Rural Exploration, And Our Fall Preview

Middleboro, MA

Autumn is here, and we're shifting gears into Fall Stuff.

When I was teaching at a Charlestown charter school, we had a class called Urban Exploration. "Urb X" was a code word we'd use for "our lesson plan got fouled up for some reason, so we're going to take the bus around Boston and show the sights to the kids. Give me lunch money for 8 kids and 2 staff."

To be fair... although I was most likely the one who had the fouled-up lesson plan, credit for the terms "Urban Exploration" and "Urb X" goes to a football coach named Mr. Cawthorne or something close to that. Left to me, the title would have been the less-smooth-sounding "We're gonna take the bus and drive around town for 3 hours," which program directors of charter schools probably wouldn't sign off on.

Some of my better classes were from Urb X, and I tried to incorporate the same spirit into my career as a shabby-website content generator. We did a bit of Urb X yesterday... although, since we went up Route 105 and down Route 106, it was technically Rural X.

As we said, Autumn is here, so we thought we'd trot out a fisherman's platter of what we'll be up to over the next few months.

I'm thinking maybe Lakeville, MA, Fall 2014

We have several trips planned to cover Fall Foliage. Ideally, we plan to catch some late September foliage in Maine, and then move down the coast with it until we are polishing up with Cape Cod after Halloween.

Marlboros costing $4.95 a pack in small-town New Hampshire has nothing to do with the frequency of these trips. Everybody buys 180 packs at once, Officer.

We also have a bee in our bonnet about stealing acorns from New Hampshire, planting them along the Cape Cod Canal, and turning the Canal into the Fall Foliage destination of 2075 AD or so, whenever the trees grow enough to turn Yellow regularly. We'll be pumping that article out after I interview a few experts.

Cranberry County Magazine has road offices in Freeport, Maine, Bow, New Hampshire, and Jeremiah's Lot, Vermont. We're analyzing more spots than Matlock, and we've got this Leaf Game on padlock.

In theory, we'll have a 4-5 fall foliage article run that starts in Maine in late September and ends up on Cape Cod after Halloween. Droughts, wind storms, low motivation and lack of money/free time may screw up this schedule, but we're looking good as of 9/22.

We did go to Maine last week, but saw nothing foliage-ish of note. The locals told me two more weeks or so.

Plympton MA

Massachusetts, especially the part of Massachusetts we work, isn't as known for her foliage/greenery as other parts of New England are. However, you can find some good 1700s stuff if you snoop around a bit and drive down the side streets.

Between flowers and foliage and even us stumbling through some dude's farm, we'll try to go out among the reapers now and then.

The harvest, formerly the occupation of just about everyone, is barely important now to anyone but farmers, craft fair hosts and the media. However, there is still a primordial recognition in most humans for the harvest season. At worst, it is perhaps the most powerful omen for the change of seasons that we have.

I feel it, and I can't even grow old properly, let alone grow cranberries. We're looking at late October for the hard color pics.

Speaking of which...

Buzzards Bay, MA

Another thing that we intend to pound into the mat is the local Cranberry haul.

The mighty cranberry is in the title of this website, so you know that we're going to represent hard at the harvest.

The compound in Buzzards Bay is just across the street from a cranberry bog, so we should be able to get this one done just by walking the Shorty out to the bus stop.

The possibility of us going inland and upstate to pursue non-coastal cranberry harvests is there, although I shouldn't need to drive any further than Carver or Hanson.

I'm a hack photographer at best, but even I can get some Ansel Adams work in if I snap enough shots at a cranberry bog with the sun shining overhead.

There is also talk of scooping a few buckets of cranberries out of Mann Farm's vast pile, dumping a few bags of sugar into a big pot, cooking/chilling, and then seeing how much cranberry sauce I can eat in one sitting. The goal would be to turn my skin burgundy.

Billingsgate Farm, Plympton MA

You know we'll be talking about pumpkins, player!

Pumpkins figure heavily in our harvest season, even more than the more ubiquitous cranberry. They are the premier decorative item for both the harvest season and Halloween, to the point where a great majority of the people who buy pumpkins have no intention of eating them.

We'll use pumpkins for photos, articles about visiting pumpkin patches, articles about decoration, Thanksgiving pie recipes, Halloween vandalism talk, and even excuses for doing vintage D'Arcy Wretzky image searches.

One thing we're kicking around is the idea of gathering (via a lot of Rural X, or from Facebook friends) a collection of pictures featuring the better Halloween displays. We'll do the same for whoever we see over-lighting their house at Christmas.

Halloween is important to us, and we also plan to run our Expand The Bridgewater Triangle article during this season, and perhaps explore a few haunted locations in our coverage area.

We also want to blow up a pumpkin with whatever fireworks we can gather up on our Foliage trips. This, and my idea to do a Diet Coke/Mentos experiment that involves tossing the bottle off of the Bourne Bridge onto the bike path below, is pretty much as deep into Science as we get here. I also have a great desire to film a pumpkin being shot by a high caliber weapon.

We actually are in preliminary discussions with a gun-range owner in Texas about re-creating the JFK assassination with pumpkins.

Me: I'm thinking that you get a pumpkin, fill it with Zar-Ex, put it in a suit, drive it around in a convertible and shoot it from 6 stories up out of a moving limo.

Them: Huh?

Me: Don't worry, I'll pay for the ammo, the pumpkins, the Zar-Ex and lunch for the shootist.

Them: How do you plan to do this?

Me: Don't worry about it. I can also provide the Kennedy accent for the doomed pumpkin. My girlfriend can do the Jackie O screaming. She's French, it'll be seamless.

Them (from TX): What's Zar-Ex?

Duxbury Beach, MA

We also will have the photographers embedded for any nor'easters that may come up once October comes around.

September and October have hosted some of our worst storms, including the Halloween Gale.

If we get our ship tightened up some, we'll try to get into some other towns for our nor'easter photography. I've always wanted to do a storm in Scituate, the Outer Cape, and on the Grey Lady.

I do have a press pass that, if I presented it to the cops and they called it to verify my vocation, would ring up my own phone. That should get me on the block.

It goes without saying that, should we get the opportunity to shoot a nor'easter, it will most likely be caused by weather conditions that will effectively cancel the rest of our foliage articles.

That should carry us through Thanksgiving...