Hunting the wily pumpkins

It was a one in a million day for the valley - late October with sunshine, and we had pumpkins to hunt down, so we packed our wallets and headed out to the country, to a quiet farming community where nothing big ever happens. The place is called, - if you can believe it- Boring. We passed the Boring Farmer's Market, which is held at the Boring Grange, took a right at the Boring Highschool, and foud our way to Liepold's Farm.

The giant conocopia only hints at the glories ahead.


This, is a hay bale. When I was a kid, hay bales were about three feet long and 2 feet by 2 feet wide and deep, and a strong 8th grade boy could throw one up onto the hay truck. No one in the world could lift one of these. It's about four feet tall and about four feet in diameter and could feed a single cow for a month.

And they have some giant pumpkins. That's me, behind this four hundred pound beauty! Does this pumpkin make me look fat?

Pumpkins to the right of us - This big one is about 350 pounds - at 27 cents a pound that works out to - a heckuva lot more than I had budgeted for jack-o-lanterns!

Pumpkins to the left of us!

Pumpkins already on their way to scarey faces with other families.

We chose these three. Aren't they a nice range of gordian beauties? Ben and Pepper, however, didn't trust these alien invaders. They spent about two hours peeking around corners distrustfully, assessing the situation and waiting for these new beings to make a move.

Still not moving, but still not trustworthy. I'm still thinking about patterns, so the pumpkins will live in the window for a day or two. Once they're cut, they go outside where it's cooler so they don't decompose before the big night - which is predicted to be cold and rainy. We'll put out three jack-o-lanterns. The neighbors have illuminated ghosts hanging from the tree and gravestones in the yard and bats with led eyes flying above the door . . . A few blocks away, the Davis family has set up a graveyard with about twenty different headstones, a couple of assorted macabre ghouls, a crypt with a dozen hooded and ominous beings surrounding it, and an antique glass-sided herse in the driveway. The street will be closed and the local high-school dance team will be performing "Thriller" on Halloween. On the way out to the farm, we passed a home that had inflatable ghosts, inflatable giant spiders, an five-foot inflatable globe filled with wildly flying bats, and about 4 inflatable pumpkins that are bigger than most trick-or-treaters. We are such pikers when it comes to holiday decorating! What are you doing for the 31st?