Leaping Deer Adventure Farm is Closing

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Wednesday, 15 January 2020 14:20

With heavy hearts, the owners of Leaping Deer Adventure Farm have announced they will closing down their doors to the public.

INGERSOLL - Leaping Deer Adventure Farm will be closing their doors.

The owners Don (Farmer Budd) and Julie Budd made the announcement with heavy hearts on social media late last night, saying their isn't a family member to carry on operations of the popular destination. Don Budd says it wasn't an easy decision.

"We really struggled with this but we are at a point where we had grown so far that we needed to go to the next level but we are also at a point in our lives where we needed to take time for our personal lives. We were just so involved and we put all of our time into Leaping Deer."

They still have one more small Corporate event at the end of the month and then the Leaping Deer Adventure farm will be closed. They will continue to operate the farm. Julie Budd explains why they converted the family farm into something the whole family could enjoy.

"We already had our John Deere Museum collection and we were already welcoming people from overseas and the United States to come and see that. We just really enjoy people, our friends said we were crazy, why would you want strangers on your farm but we have really enjoyed having people come to our farm."

Leaping Deer opened in 2006 and it was a bad year to start, because they had pouring rain every weekend, with the exception of Thanksgiving weekend. Leaping Deer gained notoriety for their massive corn maze. Don Budd says they had a lot of fun coming up with different ideas for the corn maze.

"Well it was always fun, we had a different theme every year, it was always a lot of fun to make the maze and come up with different ideas to go with it. One year we even had one that was dedicated to folks with disabilities because we were well known for being an accessible farm here as well, so everybody could come and enjoy. It was a lot of fun, a few people would get lost out there, people would always ask us how we make the maze and I would say it was kind of like how they get the caramel in the Caramilk bar, it was top secret (chuckles) but I always ended up telling them how we did it."

Julie Budd says they will have a lot of fond memories of Leaping Deer.

"I know over the years, Don and Charlie loved being the taste testers for new product, either from the bakery or the cafe. Our local food, just was so popular with everyone, the cafe and the bakery were an add on, I guess you would say of the Adventure farm. One memory that stands out for me was of hearing people's stories, I recall early in our first few years, we had a family from Burlington who came, the wife went into the corn maze with the kids and the husband, he sat on our bale pyramid, made of straw because he said he wanted to see if it smells the same as it used to when he was a kid. His wife asked us, what we thought was a peculiar question, she wanted some of our field corn, of course we asked why? and she said she wanted to taste it and see if it tasted like when I was a child growing up in China, that was one of the foods they ate to get them through the hard times and just hearing people's stories, was very touching."

Farmer Budd admits he is really going to miss it.

"We tried to meet every customer we possibly could ourselves and just have that connection with people, families would come in the door, the kids would come up and give you a big hug and tell you, it's there most favourite place on earth."

The farm has been host to thousands of families since opening in 2006.