Sunday, January 27, 2008

Perfectly Picturesque Pumpkin Picking

Among the treasure trove of half-written-and-as-yet-unpublished posts was this one from October regarding pumpkin picking with the boys.






One of the benefits of living in this area in the autumn is the abundance of farms where pumpkin picking opportunities are plentiful and the kettle corn is crunchy. Although we've never yet carved a pumpkin with the children, we've had a great time doing everything else up to that final, dirty deed.




While we had gone pumpkin picking last year, it didn't really click with Helios what the whole activity was about, and Hesperos was bundled up like a little human burrito. This year, though, Helios was all about Halloween, picking pumpkins, and the wagon rides. (Side story: While traipsing through the fields, Helios astounded us as he shared his memories of last Halloween, trick-or-treating with Hesperos dressed up like a pumpkin, in their double stroller. Talk about a good memory! It was a reminder to us parents to not try and pull a fast one over him...Helios is apparently old enough to now keep us accountable!)


Even better than the hay rides were the opportunities to imagine what life would be like as a farm animal. Helios got confused a few times which way he was supposed to look through the cardboard cutouts, as well as a little bewildered about why his little brother's head was poking out of a cow's body. But, all types of animal-corpus angst was forgotten once the boys were safely seated in their trusty, not-so-rusty Red Flyer two-seater wagon that carried them in seated comfort across the pumpkin patch, allowing them to gaze across the fields with lordly authority as they munched on kettle corn.








After picking the perfect pumpkins (and after Helios tried sitting on one, before jumping up and exclaiming "the pumpkin was poking me!" while Mommy tried to stifle laughter and vaguely adult commentary), we loaded pumpkins and children into the handy-dandy nearby wheelbarrow and carted them home. Uncarved, the pumpkins enjoyed a place of decorative prominence on our front doorstep before entering our compost bin to become mulch for our spring gardening attempts.

1 comment:

AudreyO said...

What great photos. My kids are older now, but I have such fond memories of pumpkin patches and the awe as they looked around and saw so many pumpkins. Thanks for sharing.