Fall Family Fun at Milburn Orchards

I mentioned Milburn Orchards a few posts back regarding Rustic Wedding Venues. It's located in Fair Hill, Maryland, about 10 minutes from the University of Delaware in Newark and about an hour or so from Baltimore and Philly. Milburn Orchards is famous for their many varieties of apples and apple products. You've got apples, apple cider, apple juice, apple jam, apple butter, apple donuts...yeah..you get the picture!

But in the fall, Milburns hosts Fall Festivities Saturdays and Sundays that run until around Halloween with a focus of family fun. They've got all sorts of oddities to keep kids amused, from a giant inflatable caterpiller you can crawl through to a pumpkin house, a faux-milking wooden cow (i couldn't make that up if i tried!), corn maze, and my personal favorite, the amazing aerial circus goats!


These goats aren't really members of the circus, at least I don't think they are, and they don't fly, I don't think. But they fear nothing. At Milburn Orchards, they've constructed this goat skywalk that goes at least 3 stories in the sky, if not taller. The goats scale the narrow planks of wood and walk around way up there. Milburns even created a pulley feeding system, where you put feed, corn cobs or apples in this bucket strapped to a pulley, and the goats pull on the belt to get the food. Children and goats especially loved that. Nic and I were afraid for the goats, all of which seemed trapped in the sky on some sort of primitive bridge system you would expect to see in the jungle ruins of an Indiana Jones flick. Once you walked around for a bit, you could stumble upon a baby goat or two, and if you have a handful of food, you'll encounter 3,4,5,6, and 7! We were lucky enough to make friends with an adorable little black goat who really loved back scratchies. He and Nic really seemed to bond, and we thought he would be a really cool alternative to a lawnmower, but he wasn't for sale. Milburns also houses chickens, turkeys, donkeys, cows and pigs. All of the animals are pretty mellow, and all the children seemed to be loving it.




In addition to all the fun for kids, Milburn Orchards also makes homemade apple products, from ciders and butters and jams, to Nic's latest infatuation, the Apple Cider Sugar Donut. Made fresh, from Milburns very own stockpile of apples. You could smell the donuts throughout the meandering paths of the festival, and you simple couldn't resist. Inside, Milburns houses a quaint farmers market with fresh fruits and vegetables, which is where you'll find most adults.
They've dont a nice job decorating the outdoors to make you feel all goose-bumpy in anticipation of the coming Autumn. They've got Mums, large vintage fruit crates filled with seasonal pumpkins, gourds, wheat bundles, corn husks, and of course, lots and lots of apples!

all images courtesy of Jubilee Photography, and the patience of my husband, Nic who I'm sure will love that I've posted the shot of him as a pumpkin.