We met up with some friends and their adorable 2-year-old at Belkin Family Lookout Farm in Natick last weekend for their free open house. I remember going apple picking there when I was a kid, but I didn’t realize that they now offer so many other fun activities for children in addition to the U-Pick apple orchards. If I hadn’t heard about the open house through Metrowest Mamas, I would never have thought to come here during a season other than Fall.

We took a fun little train ride through acres of beautiful and impressive fruit orchards to the Children’s Play Area, which features a large playground, kiddie rides, a moon bounce, a burlap maze, a hay bale pyramid, and face painting.

By far, the highlight of our visit was riding the colorful caterpillar ride,  a rubber–tire train that takes the wee ones along a scenic path around the Children’s Play Area. The ride takes about 5 minutes and since adults aren’t allowed to ride on it (except for the first ride of the day when there wasn’t a line of kids waiting yet), you can see a swarm of moms trotting alongside. Kind of amusing actually.

The playground features farm-themed see-saws, balance beams, a pendulum walk, a funky climbing wall structure for older kids, amongst a lot of other pieces of cool playground equipment that I don’t even know the names for (we never had these fancy things when I was a kid! What ever happened to good old-fashioned monkey bars?!).

There’s also a concession area where they sell snacks and plenty of clean, newer-looking covered picnic tables where tired parents can rest.

We were disappointed that the farm animals were not out yet for the season. And we were super disappointed that they were not yet running their pony and camel rides, but this gives us a good excuse to go back again soon!  

Since we had already told our 2-year-old buddy that he’d get to see live animals that day, we decided to stay true to our word and take a quick drive over to the Natick Community Organic Farm. We found this place online and have been meaning to stop by and check it out anyhow. Nolan got to get up close and personal with a few farm animals. We spent about 5 minutes here and then we headed home for naptime.