Each year on Martin Luther King Jr. and Presidents’ Day, Lake Farmpark in Kirtland hosts a “Discovery Day”. Next year, mark it on your calendar to go if you can! Kids are admitted free with a paying adult ($6), and they have tons of activities that they only have on these days (or select special events).
If you’ve never been there, Lake Farmpark is a working farm. All day long they have different demos and shows, like ice-cream and cheese-making, cow-milking and close-up encounters with all kinds of farm animals. So between the usual and special activities, today my children made clay, helped make then ate a cupful of Stone Soup, walked a sheep on a leash, hand-dipped a candle, milked a cow, rode on a horse-drawn tractor, planted a marigold to take home, created paper flowers, made a Venus Flytrap puppet, and saw newborn piglets, lambs and kids (some just a few days old). The facility was also hosting a Quilt Show, so the kids enjoyed seeing all the beautiful, unique handiwork. I had a feeling it would get crowded, so we got there around 9:30 (it’s open 9-5 daily except for holidays). By 10:30 the crowds started coming and by 1 it was packed. We went to the ice-cream making demo, but there were about, no lie, 100 kids ahead of them in line to turn the machine’s crank and get a teeny cup of ice cream to eat (we passed). We were there until after 2 (4-1/2+ hours) and still had only done about half the stuff they offered.
Check the Web site (www.lakemetroparks.com) for their special events; my sister’s family went to the highly popular ”Country Lights” there a couple years ago and loved it. I hadn’t taken a mini-road trip (it takes about an hour to get there from Akron) alone with the kids in a while; it ended up being a really good way to spend the day.
