Farm fun

MOSES LAKE — There’s a whole lot to do at Palmer’s Adventure Farm, about five miles east of Moses Lake.

“We have a train for the kids to go on,” said Shane Palmer, who owns Palmer’s Adventure Farm with his brother Kyle Palmer and their wives Vanessa and Janelle. “We added animals this spring. We’ve got a mini-Highland cow. We’ve got goats and bunnies and donkeys, and they can feed the animals. We just put in two jump pads for the kids. They’re air pillows inflated with a big blower and a fan, and the kids jump on it like a trampoline and have a blast. We’ve got a mega-slide (and) a double barrel slide into a corn pit. It’s like a sandbox, but it’s full of corn and the kids play in it.”

Palmer’s Adventure Farm started out four years ago as Strawbelly’s Straw Maze on Wheeler Road, Shane said.

“We had a bunch of extra straw that first year,” he said. “We’re like, what are we going to do with the straw? And my brother and I were like, well, let’s start a straw maze. “

The straw maze went over so well they did it again the next year, Shane said, and the third year they added pumpkins. Last fall, they moved to their current location on Road O Northeast, just off I-90, with all the attractions. They opened for a fall festival in September and are open again weekends through April for the Inland Northwest Tulip Festival.

“People really like it,” Shane said. “(We) grew up farming, so it’s what we’re used to. But a lot of people in this day and age aren’t able to be outside very much. How many kids have gone through a corn maze or climbed on hay bales or even fed an animal?”

For the bigger kids, there’s a paintball shooting gallery and apple blasters, pivot-mounted cannons they can aim and fire off fruit at targets.

Palmer Adventure Farm is a family business; the brothers’ kids help out.

“I work at the Sugar Shack,” said 13-year-old Halle Palmer, Shane’s daughter. “And I take care of some of the animals, too.”

Kyle ’s daughters, 8 and 6, help with kettle corn and planting, he said.

Palmer’s Adventure Farm will close down when the tulips are done blooming, probably around April, Shane said, so the brothers can concentrate on their working farm. They grow about 4,000 acres of corn and 1,000 acres of hay, Shane said, among other crops. The adventure farm is a way to combine fun with agriculture, he said.

“It won’t ever be as big as Silverwood, but we hope to have it be a draw for people in the Inland Northwest to come and have a good time,” Shane said.

Palmer's Adventure Farm

576 Road O NE

Moses Lake

www.palmersadventurefarm.com

    Paige Palmer, 11, takes aim with an apple blaster at Palmer’s Adventure Farm.
  

    From left: Vanessa Palmer, Shane Palmer, Kyle Palmer and Janelle Palmer stand in the tulip fields at Palmer’s Adventure Farm.