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The Tuttle Farm Corn Maze and Fall Activities is a showcase of seasonal delights for children and families.

The season began Saturday and continues through the first week in November on Titan Berry Road, a long road that turns off N.C. 135 near the well-known Tuttle Farm produce stand on the main highway.

Helen Tuttle, former teacher and widow of D. L. Tuttle Jr., a farmer who passed away a few years ago, and their daughter Caroline and son-in-law. Scott Lineberry, along with a host of friends and volunteers are paying forward lessons that they learned from living on their farm and sharing them with schoolchildren and families.

Besides the fun of taking a 28-minute hayride across two creeks, riding a cow-train made of 55-gallon drums and straw, schoolchildren can find their way through two corn mazes — a large one shaped like a tractor and a smaller one that looks like a bull with horns, all made of corn stalks.

Children also will observe and participate in life on a working farm.

Students can try their hand at milking with two cow replicas and meet a horse named Sassy, who unexpectedly delivered a colt during the fall last year. They can pet rabbits, chickens and ducks.

Denise Vaden, a part-time teaching assistant at Stoneville Elementary, will provide storytelling for the younger ages. Middle school children will learn about the importance of soil and water conservation, as well as nutrition.

After Oct. 1, students will be able to watch workers plant the Tuttle’s strawberry fields. Since 1978, growing strawberries has been a bumper crop for the Tuttles. When the first crop came in, Tuttle’s strawberries became known far and wide, and families and children came in droves to pick their own.

D.L. Tuttle allowed children to pick the fields because he said, ”Little feet won’t make any more damage than big feet.”

Generations remember picking berries at Tuttles, and today they bring their children to the festival.

Johnny Schoolfield, called the “straw sculptor” by Caroline Lineberry, loves to see the families come to the festival and ride the straw tractor that he made. He said the children love to pretend to drive the tractor. The tractor is a preferred setting for school pictures.

Schoolfield also built a straw village, “just like the one in The Three Little Pigs.”

Schoolchildren are scheduled to come during the week, but families are welcome on weekends. Birthday parties also may be scheduled. Schoolfield likes to see the families come on the weekend, bring a picnic and stay all day.

Caroline Tuttle Lineberry, and her husband, Scott, a surveyor, are not afraid to take a risk on the fall festival, just as her father took a chance on growing strawberries.

She has been managing the fall activities for two years and begins the third year with a background of fully scheduled events from last year. She and Scott design the corn mazes with the help of Eric Williamson, an art teacher at Rockingham County Middle School.

Caroline said she has seen the results from the air only once.

Judge Pierce — a former Rockingham County agricultural agent who encouraged D. L. Tuttle to grow strawberries — said Tuttle would be “right in” the fall festival, 100 per cent. Pierce said the Tuttles have always been “smart, work-oriented and able to get along with people.”

Robin Watson, who serves Rockingham County as an agronomic expert, is a member of the N.C. Department of Agriculture and knows the Tuttle family well. He admires the faithfulness of the family to their farm endeavors and the fact that they are in tune with environmental issues.

Like her dad, Caroline is active in state organizations as a member of both the N.C. Strawberry Board and the N.C. Board of Agritourism.

On the weekends, which are family-oriented, there are a few added attractions such as the “Corn Cannon” shoots corn at pumpkins (whoever hits the pumpkin gets to keep it), face-painting and concessions.

Although chips and drinks will be available, families are encouraged to bring a picnic and enjoy the days of pumpkins, animals, and all the joys of fall.

An Eden native, Rachel Wright is retired as a teacher at Morehead High School and an instructor at Rockingham Community College.