My family passed this land down for generations, farming everything from tobacco and corn to sweet potatoes. My grandfather, James Marvin Long, built a house here across the road from the one where he and his sisters were born. He and his wife, Betty, raised five girls there. When he became too old to farm, and because farming had changed so much, we wanted to make best use of the land. We had already created Panic Attack, a very successful, intense haunted house designed with movie set quality effects, for older kids and adults.

Building on that, we wanted something that would be fun, family-oriented, year-round, and would honor and teach about the traditions of family farming. Boondocks Adventure Farm was the result of input from everyone in the family, many of whom still live on the farm, or close by. Everyone, including James and Betty’s daughters and my cousins, are involved in making it run. And we all simply love it. It’s hard work but seeing the kids and their parents having so much fun together is wonderful; we see a lot of joy.

It’s just a great place for families to come to connect with nature and each other, and to realize that you don’t have to be on your cell phone to have a good time. There are so many interesting things to discover – interacting with goats and cows and alpacas and yaks, fair rides and giant tube slides in the fresh air and sunshine, a corn maze to conquer, pedal carts to race around in, music to enjoy, and learning about what it’s like on a farm.

Coming to see us becomes a family tradition for a lot of folks, they come back year after year, and they feel like family to us. That’s why we try to make it magical each season. Right after the last day of the fall festival, we’ll start hanging about a million lights for the Christmas celebration! On a farm, there’s something special about each time of year – and always a lot to do!