Drive up John Read Road any weekend this October and you'll see the same hand-lettered sign for Warrup's Farm that's marked the turn every year for as long as most residents can remember. Turn in, and something is different. The barnyard is closed this season. No goats to feed, no chickens to admire before you head down to the patch. The pumpkin vines are still there. The hayride still runs. The farm stand still sells cider, honey, and gourds grown on the property. One piece of a familiar fall ritual is missing, and the rest of it hasn't moved an inch.
That gap is worth sitting with, because it tells you something about how fall actually works in this town. Redding doesn't have one fall season. It has four, run by four organizations that share no calendar, no budget, and no coordination committee, and they simply happen to land in the same six or seven weeks. When one of them changes something, like a farm deciding to close its barnyard for a year, the other three don't even notice. Understanding that they're separate is the difference between treating October here as a single event you might miss and treating it as a run of independent chances you can pick up any weekend you're free.
Four organizations, one overlapping season
Here's the rough shape of it, and who's actually behind each piece:
| What | Who runs it | When it typically lands | Anchor detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artisan Fair | First Church of Christ, Congregational | Late September | Running since 1982, more than 40 artisans, a tag sale, a jewelry boutique |
| Pick-your-own pumpkins | Warrup's Farm (Hill family) | Weekends through October | Barnyard closed this year; farm stand open Tuesday through Sunday |
| Harvest Festival | New Pond Farm Education Center | Mid-October, single Saturday | Falconer Brian Bradley of Skyhunters in Flight, Percheron hayrides |
| Guided preserve walks | Redding Community Hiking Club (Land Trust, Mark Twain Library, Redding Neighbors & Newcomers) | Scattered Saturdays September through fall | September 19 photo walk at Poliak Preserve with photographer Tony Gale |
None of these four groups reports to another. A church congregation, a certified organic family farm, an education nonprofit, and a land trust partnership aren't trying to build a unified fall experience. They're each running their own thing on their own schedule, and the overlap is a coincidence of the growing season rather than a plan.
The fair opens the season without mentioning it
The First Church of Christ, Congregational has held its Artisan Fair since 1982, which makes this year's edition roughly the forty-fourth. The formula hasn't drifted much in that time: more than 40 artisans, a tag sale that regulars describe as one of the best in town, a jewelry boutique, and food served straight from the church's fellowship committee, from grilled burgers to apple pie. Parking is at Redding Elementary School on Lonetown Road, with a shuttle running the short distance to the church grounds.
What's notable is what the fair isn't selling. There's no pumpkin patch, no hayride, nothing that markets itself as a fall event at all. It's a craft fair and a fundraiser that happens to fall on the calendar right as the last of the summer produce gives way to gourds and cornstalks at the farm stands down the road. For a lot of longtime residents, this is simply the weekend fall starts, not because the church intended it that way, but because it's the first crowd of the season gathered outdoors in town.
Two weekends the barnyard used to fill
Warrup's Farm, at 11 John Read Road, is a small certified organic operation run by the Hill family. The core of the fall visit hasn't changed: pick-your-own pumpkins from the vine, weekends in October from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., plus the hayride down to the patch. The farm stand carries its own gourds and winter squash alongside local apples, cider, and honey, and stays open Tuesday through Sunday through the farm's Open Farmhouse initiative, a five-bedroom stay-and-create space on the property.
The barnyard being closed this year is a small thing on paper. If you've brought kids in past falls expecting to see the animals before or after picking a pumpkin, that piece of the visit isn't there in 2026. It's worth knowing before you go, mostly so nobody's disappointed standing at an empty pen. But it doesn't touch the actual pumpkin patch, the hayride, or the farm stand, which is the point. A working farm makes decisions about its own operation every year. This year, the decision was the barnyard. Next year it might be something else. The patch itself is the constant.
The one Saturday that needs a falconer and a rain date
New Pond Farm Education Center's Annual Harvest Festival is the one entry on this list that behaves like a real event rather than an open window. It's a single Saturday, historically landing somewhere in the middle two weeks of October, with a rain date built in for the following Sunday. The farm runs it at its Marchant Road property with historical demonstrations like rope making and open hearth cooking, livestock encounters that include a hayride pulled by a team of Percherons, and an afternoon falconry demonstration from Brian Bradley of Skyhunters in Flight, whose hawks and owls have returned as the festival's marquee act in recent years.
Because it's ticketed by the carload and runs on a single date, this is the one piece of Redding's fall that actually requires planning ahead rather than showing up whenever a Saturday opens up. Check New Pond Farm's own calendar for the confirmed date before you build a weekend around it, since the exact Saturday shifts slightly year to year.
The trails fill in the weeks between
The Redding Community Hiking Club, a joint effort between the Redding Land Trust, Mark Twain Library, and Redding Neighbors & Newcomers, runs guided walks that don't get nearly the attention of the farms or the fair, which is a shame, because they're the connective tissue for people who want to be outside on the weekends that don't have a festival attached. On September 19 at 10 a.m., the club leads a photo walk at Poliak Preserve with photographer Tony Gale, timed for a stretch of trail known for its beaver activity along the Saugatuck.
That's one walk on one Saturday, but it's part of a pattern the Land Trust has built over decades. The organization stewards more than 2,200 acres of open space in town, and the Book of Trails, its own guide to local hiking, describes roughly 120 miles of trail across Redding Land Trust, town, state, and conservancy land. Most of it is quiet and unmarketed compared to the farms and the fair, which makes the guided walks useful less for the mileage and more as an invitation. Someone who knows the terrain is leading, which turns a preserve most residents drive past into a place worth stopping the car for.
Why the barnyard closing matters less than it looks
Put the four pieces next to each other and the shape of Redding's fall gets clearer. A church fair opens it without knowing it's opening anything. A family farm runs its pumpkin patch on its own terms, closing a barnyard one year without touching the rest of the visit. An education nonprofit runs one ticketed, weather-contingent day with a falconer. A land trust partnership fills the gaps with guided walks that ask nothing more than showing up.
None of it is coordinated, and that's the useful part to understand if you live here. There's no single kickoff weekend to catch or you've missed the season. There's a run of independent offerings that happen to overlap, which means missing one, or noticing that one of them changed, like a closed barnyard, doesn't put a dent in the rest. You can catch the fair one weekend, the farm the next, the hike the one after that, and the harvest festival whenever New Pond Farm sets its date, and you'll have covered the season without any of it depending on the others.
If you're a Redding homeowner thinking ahead to what your property might be worth heading into a new season, or you know someone weighing a move to a town where fall looks like this, the Kelly Higgins Team is local and easy to reach for a no-obligation conversation about your home or your next move.
