'It's the best job ever,' Josh said last Thursday evening as vehicles began to meander the half-mile through lighted meadows.

Nothing compares, as far as he's concerned, to giving his community of Lowell and visitors from far and wide something to ooh and aah about. Josh, a jolly figure in his own right, gave up his career as a certified public accountant in June to devote all of his work hours to agritainment. The hoop houses on this farm aren't used to protect plants from bad weather they are sensory-immersion tunnels bathing carloads of revelers in festive purple and ice-blue hues.įor the Sickingers and their two young sons, Henry, 7, and Conrad, 5, these fields of lights also make up a field of dreams 14 years in the making. Just about every holiday theme imaginable-from the Nativity to 'Frozen' to candy cane lane to Santa Claus-is represented and more than a million lights provide the glitter. Josh and Melissa Sickinger have turned a corner of their Lake County property into a sparkly, drive-through Christmas card called Harvest Time Lights. However, what the 45-acre operation trades in most of all is joy especially this time of year. To be sure, Harvest Tyme Family Farm also grows stuff that visitors buy. And, of course, any number of them are purveyors of fresh produce from stands set up by the side of the road. Others sell their own beef or pork directly to customers. Some farmers add cash-and-carry dairy stores to their operations. Farm Hosts Drive-Through Christmas Display

Harvest tyme pumpkin patch