By Ken Valenti

WESTPORT — Families flocked to Earthplace for Sunday’s “Fall Festival,” where the children scaled a climbing wall, created arts and crafts, rumbled along on a hayride and frolicked in a “pool” of dried corn kernels.

“There are so many activities for the kids, they can go all day,” said Tony McDowell, the Earthplace executive director.

Eight-year-old Charlotte Ryll attacked the climbing wall like a boss, scaling to the top with little trouble. She was encouraged by her father Patrick, calling out, “You’re killing it!”

Charlotte descended the wall beaming and proclaimed the climb was not that hard, but “was fun!”

“I think she did it really well,” her father said. “No fear!”

Other activities included arts and crafts, cornhole and a “hay search,” where kids hunted through hay for pieces of red string to trade for candy, three for one piece. 

For food, the festival served up food trucks offering pizza, Maine lobsters, burgers and more.

The festival was the second part of the big annual fundraising weekend for Earthplace, the 62-acre nature and wildlife sanctuary on Woodside Lane. It began Saturday night with the adults-only “Woodside Bash,” featuring an open bar, harvest dinner, live music by Pimpinella, a fire pit and a mechanical bull rides.

The Fall Festival followed with a turnout that Nicole Grotheer, the nature center’s marketing manager, called, “fabulous.”

“Everybody wants to be out,” she said. “It’s a beautiful day.”

In the “doughnut bite” challenge, young contestants did their best to bite round treats suspended on strings without using their hands.

“It was really fun, but I feel like it kept going up every time I tried to bite it,” said Francesca Bolognina, 9, who devoured a doughnut alongside friends Melia and Leon Charalambous, ages 9 and 7, and Charlie Tysseland, 7.

They also had had fun meting the menagerie of animals in the Earthplace sanctuary, including a horseshoe crab that was somewhat different from what Leon Charalambous had expected.

“I never knew they had legs,” he said.

The center’s “animal ambassadors” also include ferrets Tribble, Spock and Jam, Dorito the corn snake, Artemis the red-tailed hawk and Gorgonzola the blue-tongued skink.

E.T., a turkey buzzard, took the opportunity to spread her wings when brought out to meet visitors by animal care technician Haley Lubliner. 

The annual event is fun not only for the families but for the staff members who help out, Grotheer said. McDowell was also the guy driving the tractor for the popular hayride around Meadow Grass Trail.

“This line never stops,” McDowell said as the next group of passengers boarded for a ride. “The kids love it.”

Ken Valenti is a freelance writer.