A mile outside of Cortez, down dirt roads that thread through open fields and trees turned yellow in the change of the seasons, there’s a place called Jones Farm.
It’s off County Road M, positioned precisely between County Road 25 and 26. You’ll know you’re there when you see a black sign that reads, “Jones Farm, Established 1995.”
It’s decorated with pumpkins and a skull, too, if you look closely. Almost every fall since 1996, it has organized a Pumpkin Fest.
This year, because of the way Halloween fell, it welcomed families for four weekends – minus one rainy Friday – to come and enjoy its fall festivities, Bobbe Jones, who owns the farm with her husband, said from the concession stand.
Her husband was on grill duty, cooking hot dogs while she sold snacks with her 4-year-old granddaughter Loxley Elliott. They sold chips, popcorn, soda and cider from the decorated stand, and when business was slow, Loxley offered to give The Journal a grand tour of the place.
“Everything. I like everything the most,” Loxley said as she walked toward the corn maze in her blue koala slippers.
The cornstalks were double, if not triple, her size. Every so often, a ghost or zombie hung in the path, but Loxley was unphased by the monsters, rainbow llama unicorn in hand.
“I’m brave,” she said.
She said that “100 people, maybe more than that,” had come to the farm for its Pumpkin Fest this year.
As we walked and wandered, kids played on the playground and bales of hay and were photographed with their families beside pumpkins and other harvest décor.
One shed was decorated with squash and gourds of many shapes and sizes, on hay set up like stairs. Witches hung from the ceiling, and a sign read, “Jones Pumpkin Patch.”
“I can read some things but not everything,” said Loxley as she gazed at the sign.
Two witches at the back of the pumpkin patch were tall and life-like. And when prompted with a noise or a shove, they’d laugh an evil laugh and say things like, “Happy Halloween.”
“It’s not real,” Loxley insisted. “I like how she shakes.”
Next came a hay maze, which was inside a hoop house and too hot to play in during the heat of the day. So what really came next was a tall board with a giant ruler on its side that read “How Tall This Fall.”
Bobbe said they put up the growth chart each Pumpkin Fest, since many families have made it a fall tradition, to see how the kids grow through the years.
Loxley was just over 3 feet tall, and her rainbow llama unicorn measured 6 inches, horn included.
“You’re 5 inches tall!” she exclaimed.
Bobbe said her husband and daughter, who sold tickets at the gate, raised all the pumpkins.
“We do it for the community,” said Bobbe. “People really appreciate it. They spend hours here, kids have a ball.”
Next year, they plan to “change it up” and expand Pumpkin Fest, making it double its size and scarier for older kids.
Though the Pumpkin Fest is finished for the season, you can still get your spooky on for Halloween! The Cortez Public Library is screening ‘The Shining’ on Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 5:15 p.m.
On Halloween day from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., there’s a Trick-or-Treat at Vista Grande Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center. That night, there’s a Halloween Carnival in Mancos at 270 Montezuma Ave. It’s also a food drive, so bring unopened, unexpired food for the Mancos FoodShare! And at Off the Bench downtown Cortez, there’s a haunted house Halloween night and into the weekend from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.
