Why, you ask? Seems crazy, we know…We’ve always loved the Waco area and we’ve felt drawn here ever since our first (of many) annual vacations in 2018. (I will come back to that)

Our original farm, Winterbrook Farms, was a 450-acre farming operation that was primarily a hay and crop farm. The primary focus was supplying local horse farms with top-quality hay while rotating other fields with crops.

On December 15, 2013, my father, Jan Lawyer passed away after fighting a tough battle against Brain Cancer. In 2016, after struggling to keep the farms afloat for a few years, we purchased them to continue the farming operation.

All was going well until, in November of 2017, we welcomed our daughter Jana (who was named in memory of Jan) and in April of 2020, we welcomed our son Weston.

After becoming parents to two young children, we realized our priorities were changing and juggling so much (and being involved parents) just wasn’t possible.

We were farming a lot of land, running a busy pumpkin patch business with 30,000 fall customers, and I (Taylor) was a well-established Realtor and team leader for a busy Real Estate team. It was exhausting and meant lots of long days and nights for our family. So, we decided that our young family needed to make some major changes to ensure that we were able to have more quality time together.

With the pumpkin patch business running for 22 years, thousands of visitors from all over came annually to enjoy the activities and attractions and to take a hay ride and pick a pumpkin.  We recognized many of our customers year after year and formed relationships with them. Making the decision to close the business down was one of the hardest decisions of our lives. We loved our farm and we poured our hearts and souls into it and choosing our family over it, was really difficult (if I am being honest).

However, we were reassured of our decision when we found the property for sale that made us first fall in love with the Waco, TX area: 7 acres of land with three beautiful tiny homes rented through Airbnb in the Gholson area. We had been staying at these homes yearly since 2018 and immediately felt “it was meant to be”. We offered on these first as the idea of “hosting” others in this wonderful community was a dream come true. When our offer was accepted on this beautiful property, we started to look for a farm to put down new roots on. After months of searching for the “perfect” property, we found this beautiful piece of land for sale in West, exactly where we wanted to be. We truly felt that God made all the pieces just fall right in place for us to make the leap of faith and make the change.

So, yes, we sold everything we owned and decided to start over here in West, TX doing what we love most: Spring & Pumpkin Festivals on the farm. It is a true passion for us and there is nothing we love more than brainstorming new activities for children to play on, growing specialty crops (like Sunflowers and Pumpkins) for guests to enjoy, and overall creating a truly “fun” place for our community to come spend a day.

We hosted our 1st Annual Sunflower Festival for 6 weekends in May and early June 2022. We then hosted our first Pumpkin Festival in September and October of 2022. We have since had a second year of successful festivals in 2023 in which customers drove 4+ hours for our flower fields and fun on the farm. We are so grateful for everyone that comes out and continues to support us and we look forward to many more years of festival memories on the farm with y’all!