Georgia families flock to Sleepy Hollow Farm this fall

Hundreds of people, mostly families with small children, milled around Sleepy Hollow Farm, exploring the farm’s pastoral 60 acres Sunday afternoon, feeding goats or petting the lone horse, Elsa.

It was the opening weekend for the farm’s fall season, and visitors chose from a wide variety of brightly colored pumpkins that were grown in and gathered from fields at the farm. Some of the pumpkins were edible, while others were decorative, with colors ranging from brilliant yellows, soft greens, vibrant oranges and black.

Margaret Poplin and Jeffery Freeman, a couple from Marietta, brought their 2-year-old daughter, Rowan Freeman-Poplin, out to the farm Sunday because Rowan wanted to go for a car ride, while Poplin and Freeman wanted to pick out a pumpkin.

“We thought it would be nice to go somewhere, and it’s outside,” Poplin said. “And we looked online for the nearest pumpkin patch, and this came up. … They do have a ton of photo opportunities all over, like where they clearly made backdrops for people to take adorable photos.”

Margaret Poplin and Jeffery Freeman of Marietta discuss with their daughter, Rowan Freeman-Poplin, 2, which pumpkin to take home from Sleepy Hollow Farm. (Photo Courtesy of Joel Elliott)

The farm started as a Christmas tree farm 49 years ago, when Perry Deweese purchased the land and cleared it himself by hand while also attending school full-time to earn a master’s degree in engineering, according to his daughter, Chrissy Baum. Deweese would go on to become an engineer for Lockheed Martin, but he continued developing the farm.

“He’s one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met,” Baum said. “He’s now 77 years old, and he still does the mowing, but that’s about all he can do — he physically can’t do much else.”

Baum said she and her sister have gradually been taking on more and more responsibilities running the farm, including caring for and feeding the 200-some animals they maintain on its grounds. Many of the animals, such as the goats and Elsa the horse are rescues the farm owners have taken in.

Elsa, a 27-year-old piebald with blue-gray eyes, came to the farm because she had no other place to go. She was severely malnourished before the family nursed her back to health, Baum said.

Creating family activities such as the corn maze, corn hole, a cow-train ride, the Nature Ninja Park and others attract families and enables the farm owners to provide shelter and food for the rescued animals through revenue generated from visitors. The farm also has a small store that sells a variety of ciders, jellies, jams, hot sauces and barbecue sauces that are produced locally.

The farm owners said they typically receive a few thousand visitors each weekend they are open. Their fall season will last until Nov. 4, and they will reopen the day after Thanksgiving to sell Christmas trees.