By TIFFANY WILSON
How beautiful are the colour of the leaves, the perfectly grown pumpkins, the buzzing of the bees and the laughter of children during the day and their screams of terror at night? Snyders Family Farm can answer this.
One of the first agricultural and entertainment farms in Ontario, it was purchased by John Snyder nine and a half years ago. Snyders Family Farm was known as Kimglow until three years ago when both John and Meghan Snyder changed the name.
“We changed the name from Kimglow to Snyders Family Farm because it had always been associated with Halloween and it has been our goal to change this farm into a four season farm. Kimglow has been around a long time, but it has aged and Snyders Family Farm has been constantly working on building new things.” said Meghan.
With the tag line “farm fun by day, frightening by night,” the farm is certainly not haunted during the day so that is when children of any age are welcome to enjoy the 14 attractions, Meghan said. The attractions range from picking the perfect pumpkin from their 15-acre field, visiting Norm the bull, taking a pony ride, watching a clown show, climbing high into the sky on straw castles or taking a wagon ride where actors put on a show for you. Visitors can also enjoy a variety of foods such as homemade apple fritters, candy apples, hot dogs, beverages and so much more.
However, the three evening attractions called Night Terrors grab the attention of many university and college students. There is a haunted corn maze, haunted barn and a hay ride with about 35 actors, smoke, flames and props. The hope is one day it will be the scariest hay ride in all of Ontario, she said.
The couple spends most of the year going to haunts and seminars in order to continually grow, learn and stay in touch with what is new in the agricultural and entertainment industry in order to have a future with the farm.
“We go to the haunted conference in St. Louis and that’s where we buy all the props and costumes and get ideas. There are fire safety courses, Facebook courses and even a Twitter course. You could literally spend your whole year going to all sorts of stuff to try and keep up with the industry,” said Meghan.
In the meantime, the buzzing of bees happens to be a popular sound while visiting the farm because without them the farm would not have their fantastic flowers, great pumpkin crop and Kingsbury Apiaries local honey.
“We work hard all year-round for a total of six weekends. We do what we think is a good job and so we would like to create something longer,” she said.
However, the farm does offer a garden centre in the spring, making hanging baskets for the City of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University and would love to get into summer attractions in order to entice people to come in all four seasons.
For more information on Snyders Family Farm go to www.snydersfamilyfarm.com, call 519-632-7356 or e-mail info@syndersfamilyfarm.com.
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