But now, for the first time, the family owners have expanded their fall-themed activities on the market’s surrounding 37 acres at 4000 Oxford Trenton Road.
These new features include hayrides to hand-feed corn to their cattle, a pumpkin patch, a larger corn maze, photo-friendly sunflower field and a playground for youngsters along with water pump plastic duck races and soon-to-come will be a “corn cannon” customers can use to fire off cobs hundreds of yards into the distance.
“We are going into agritourism and we’re starting to do a lot of new and different things here,” said 24-year-old Brenden Butterfield, co-owner of the market with his father Bryan.
The market carries the family’s farm produce along with other locally grown produce and products as well as gourmet jams, honey, soap, baked goods and locally made farm-themed decorations and farm-theme chairs.
Butterfield recently stood in the newly created pumpkin patch next to the store and surveyed his family’s recent expansions, which he described as a major, new chapter for the Butterfield farm, which started in 1967.
“The reaction has been positive,” he said. “We’ve seen a lot of nice families come out here.”
Butterfield’s changes are just the latest example of some of Butler County’s long-time farm families evolving from straight, road-side retail to agritourism.
Among Butterfield’s customers is Jessica Way, an Oxford native whose family now lives in Indianapolis.
Her visit this week back to Oxford saw her make a point to stop by Butterfield’s with her young children to partake in the new offerings.
“It’s amazing. It just makes this place even more special,” said Way as her children gleefully pumped water into the troughs, propelling plastic ducks to race against each other.
The new activities are “an added benefit to a place we already love and you can see the kids are enjoying it too.”
Noah Greenbaum, a Miami University student from Toledo, has been coming to Butterfield for years and said there are even more reasons now.
“It’s a very family-oriented place and I love that they are always changing based on the season. With their new pumpkin field and corn maze I’m definitely looking forward to checking those out,” said Greenbaum.
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