Military Families Tour Pumpkin Farm in Crest Hill

While his two little sons ran, smiling, from one attraction to another at Siegel’s Cottonwood Farm Saturday, John Alvarado talked about life back in the U.S.

“The way things are, it’s expensive to go places,” said Alvarado, of Berwyn, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq for six months in 2003.

He and his family are grateful for Siegel’s Military Appreciation Weekend, observed Sept. 24 and 25, when the farm, celebrating its annual Pumpkin Fest through Oct. 31, presented its special homage to our men and women in uniform.

“All the military and veterans and their families all enter free this weekend,” said Siegel’s manager, Susan Siegel. Siegel added that military families don’t need to show proof of military service, they only need to mention it at the gate.

Siegel said it’s not just the soldiers that are sacrificing, it’s the people close to them.

“Their families are also suffering. So, it’s also for the wives and girlfriends,” she said.

Alvarado said this was his family’s second trip to the working farm.

“We just found this place last year,” he said, adding that the family made the trip for Military Appreciation Day in 2010.

Alvarado said he was first stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, when he enlisted in the Army for a three-year hitch. After his stint in Iraq, he returned to the U.S. and remained on active reserve through 2010.

When he came back, he said, he found work. And he also reconnected.

“I met my high school sweetheart when I got back,” he said. They got married and had two children.

This time around, Alvarado was at Siegel’s with sons Antonio, 7, and Miguel, 4, his parents, his sisters-in-law and his wife, Dolores.

The family walked through the center of the farm, which features a giant inflatable slide, an inflatable bounce ride, a haunted barn, a corn maze and three kiddie play areas. There’s a 26-foot climbing wall, a smaller wall for little climbers, a petting zoo, an obstacle course, two train rides, a tractor-pulled grain train and hayrides that take riders through a cornfield to another growing field.

There is also a country store stocked with food, seasonal décor and Halloween supplies.

And, of course, there are the pumpkins.

“We grow corn, soybeans, pumpkins, wheat and sweet corn,” Siegel said of the 40-acre farm, currently celebrating its 102nd year in business.