Country Cousins Fall Festival begins in Othello
Kathryn Phillips, 15, tries her hand at pumpkin bowling while her cousin, 14-year-old Jaycee Freeman, looks on.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald
Ten-year-old Parker Gordon (front) and her siblings Decker, 5, and Charlie, 7, roll a section of pipe along a track at the opening day of Country Cousins' Harvest Festival in Othello on Saturday.
Kathryn Phillips, 15, tries her hand at pumpkin bowling while her cousin, 14-year-old Jaycee Freeman, looks on.
Signs showing the way to things at the Country Cousins Harvest Festival.
OTHELLO — Five-year-old Josie Johnson was emphatic about what she enjoyed at the first day of the Country Cousins Fall Festival.
“Everything!” she said as she stood in line to get some sweets with her dad, Bryce.
“We came all the way here from Wenatchee,” Johnson said. “This is our first time. I heard about it from a friend in Moses Lake. We’ve been here a couple of hours, and this is fun.”
Located at the intersection of SR-17 and Hatton Road about three miles south of Othello, Country Cousins opened its Fall Festival celebration on Saturday and offers a hayride, a “train” ride (converted water barrels pulled by a four-wheeler), a petting zoo, a giant inflated “bouncy pillow” to jump on, a two-acre pumpkin patch, and a five-acre big corn maze to get lost in.
“We got lost in the maze for about an hour,” said Rebecca Gordon, a mother of three who brought her kids Parker, Charlie and Decker all the way from Lind for the day.
“It’s huge,” she added.
Country Cousins is a roadside stand operated by Freeman Farms, and the family started the Fall Festival in 2015 not only as an opportunity to give visiting families some fun time but also as a way of bringing the giant extended Freeman family together.
“It gives our kids an opportunity to learn how to work and earn some money for college and other things,” said Steven Freeman. “We’re all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so they earn money for going on missions, going to school, you know, all of that.”
Noting the line that had formed around one of the admissions booth, Freeman said that Saturday might have been their best opening day yet, though he noted that in 2019, opening day was “freezing.”
The Fall Festival will be open six days a week until the end of October. Admissions prices are $8 per person 8 years and older, $5 per child age 3-7, and $7 per person age 55 and older. In addition, they offer special group rates.
“We’re closed on Sunday,” Freeman said. “I want to be with my family too.”
Freeman’s brother-in-law Craig Phillips stood flipping burgers and noting the size of the crowd. Weekdays are a good time for families to visit, he noted, but on Saturdays, the food is better.
“By far the most successful thing we do is the Fall Festival,” Phillips said. “This is a very light day. It will get much busier.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
