Fall brings harvest festivals to town for family-friendly fun

MARIANA LOPEZ

milopez15@ole.augie.edu

Red, orange and brown leaves descend alongside the temperature. The sun shines bright, but everyone is wearing scarves and jackets as their boots crunch every leaf decorating the sidewalk. Front porches adorned with pumpkins of all sizes. Fall season is here, and with it come harvest festivals.

Harvest festivals are meant to celebrate the end of the harvest season, or in other words, the start of fall.

All fall related activities, such as pumpkin carving, apple picking and grape stomping are traditional events. It would not be a harvest festival without food.

Sioux Falls and neighboring towns offer a variety of harvest festivals to help unwind from the stress of midterms and enjoy the weather before it gets too cold.

As soon as you arrive at one, make sure to grab an apple cider to warm up before hitting the fields to pick up apples and take Instagram-worthy pictures.

Several harvest festivals will be held at both apple orchards and pumpkin patches in the upcoming weeks.

The Pumpkin Festival, taking place from Oct. 7-8, is located at Riverview Christmas Tree Farm. The festival will have a variety of games as well as a large array of pumpkins to pick from.

The Fall Harvest Festival, taking place Oct. 7 at Wilde Prairie Winery, will serve as a way to celebrate the fall season with live music, a mini-grape stomp and other activities.

Strawbale Winery will be throwing their annual Harvest Festival on Oct. 14 with vendors, games, pumpkin painting and various activities.

And just four miles away from Sioux Falls, the Country Apple Orchard will host its 20th annual pumpkin and apple picking festival on Oct. 7 through 8. Family-friendly activites like pony rides, petting zoos, inflatables and train rides are available on site as well as of their homemade apple pie and cider.

Whichever festival you choose to go to, make sure you have a warm coat on and take cash for the apple pies and pumpkin spice lattes.