Doing the Pumpkin Patch

Madison started asking a few weeks ago if we could go to a real pumpkin patch this year. Since we have never made it further than the Fry's pumpkin display before, we decided to oblige her, and go do the real thing. We made the trek out to Buckelew Farms on Saturday, where we had our pick of hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins. I was amazed at how many "perfect" ones there were. You just don't find them that nice at the local grocery store a couple of days before Halloween. They had tall, skinny ones, short, fat ones, and perfectly round ones in all sizes, as well as white ones and some dark orange warty variety. We loved the horse-drawn wagon ride out to the pumpkin patches and then tromping through the vine-covered ground. Wyatt only went down once with his feet tangled up in the vines. We did the petting zoo, which was cleaner and less odorous than many I have been in, and took advantage of some of the photo op spots (even some with cousins that we ran into there). We had lunch that, although overpriced, was quite good for coming from a little carnival trailer. Madison picked out a nice big round pumpkin of the regular variety, Wyatt got a big dark warty one, and Levi got a cute little round one that was still half green. We carved them up last night. The kids (exception--Levi) drew their own faces on their pumpkins and carved them all by themselves. We thought for sure Wyatt would give up and ask for help, as we learned the dark warty ones have very thick shells, but he sawed and sawed and sawed and...ended up with a nice looking jack-o-lantern that probably will last until Thanksgiving. The warty one didn't smell like a pumpkin either. Madison said it smelled like watermelon. I was glad we had at least one regular one so we could get a good whiff of that once-a-year pumpkin slime smell!