It’s Fall, time to go to the ranch, Oil Ranch that is!
For those of us in Texas, Fall weather doesn’t usually appear until late October. When it does show up, you can count on it only lasting a few days before we are back to the muggy, not quite as hot temperatures. We had planned on this trip to a local place called, Oil Ranch, for a couple of weeks. It was scheduled for the end of October. Deep in my heart I was hoping for a day with nice weather so we could actually dress like Fall, but expecting it to be warm. I was so thankful the day we went was an absolutely gorgeous day! I have truly come to appreciate the beautiful days we have!
This was my first visit to Oil Ranch. My oldest three boys had all been in previous years on preschool field trip days, so I was excited to check it out! It is a fairly low key place just meant for everyday, simple farm fun. The staff recommended that we ride the horses first before the line was too long with school field trips showing up. We followed their recommendations and had a short wait for the pony rides. The boys were able to ride twice each! We spent the rest of our time doing other activities.
After the pony rides, we spent some time visiting the smaller animals at the ranch. They had turkeys, chickens, goats, sheep, rabbits, pigs, a cow and her 2 day old baby calf! The boys enjoyed looking at and petting each of the animals. All the animals we encountered at the ranch were very friendly, with the exception of the turkeys! They tried biting our fingers off! Adler truly loved being around all the animals! He even kissed the goats!
After visiting the farm animals, we played in the middle of the barn. They have a built in slide and hay area for the kids to enjoy. Adler was really enjoying throwing the hay up in the air, but the staff told him to stop. The hay pile was HUGE! Aaron and Adler really liked climbing to the top of the pile and either sliding down or jumping down, which made me nervous!
Our favorite part of the entire day was taking both a train ride and a hay ride. The train ride was pretty simple and just went from one end of the ranch to the other end of the ranch past some animals we hadn’t seen yet and past the small lake on the property. The hayride was a different story. It also went from one end of the ranch to the other end, but they told us to pick some food pellets before we got on the ride. When the hayride arrived at the back pasture, the adorable cows swarmed the hayride for their food pellet treats! They surrounded the hay ride on all sides and tried to eat all the pellets available to them and any hay on the ground. I thought this part was awesome! Adler was a tad intimidated by the huge cows trying to get onto the hayride though!
The ranch had some fun, simple things for the kids to play on as well like playground equipment. The highlight of the day for Aaron was playing in these gigantic barrels! They would walk in them to get the barrels to go to the other side. Sometimes they raced other barrels. Sometimes they went by themselves. Sometimes they let the little siblings in the barrels! This might have been Aaron’s favorite part!
Since we knew we would be spending most of the day at Oil Ranch and the weather was beautiful, we packed our lunches so we could spend a longer time at Oil Ranch. There are these huge pavilions with long picnic tables set up for us to eat. After lunch, we went back out and enjoyed more activities at Oil Ranch. The last thing we did before heading home was to pick out the pumpkins included with our entry fee for the boys. They weren’t tiny pumpkins at all like I expected. They had all sizes ranging from softball sized up to personal watermelon sized pumpkins. The boys were so excited to pick a pumpkin out to take home!
We had such a great day at Oil Ranch! I would love to start visiting each year and make it a family tradition for the fall season! It was simple, family fun!
