Family Daze

Local pumpkin farm outing beats supermarket comfort

By Debbie Farmer

The most terrifying Halloween experience at my house came in mid-October when my husband decided to take the family to spend an afternoon at the local pumpkin farm. He insisted we were going to ride a hay wagon into a hot, dusty field and pluck a fresh pumpkin directly from the vine instead of buying an inexpensive one from the produce section of the clean, air-conditioned, local supermarket.

By the time I finished packing the amount of sunscreen and bug repellent we'd need to survive our excursion, I could've walked down the street to the store, carved a pumpkin into a replica of Michelangelo's David, and made two pies.

When we finally arrived at the farm we parked in a field with the other vehicles.

"Where are the pumpkins?" My 6-year old daughter looked worried.

My husband pointed off into the distance. I squinted my eyes, stood on my toes, and leaned forward in the direction he was pointing, but all I saw was a patch of green I figured was a forest in the next state.

"Can't you see them?" He could barely contain his excitement.

"Sort of," she said, "but why are they so far away?"

"So we can have the exciting experience of riding a horse-drawn cart filled with hay into the field." He pointed to a slow moving speck traveling towards us.

I calculated the wagon would arrive at the pickup area sometime around mid-spring, so I suggested we take a short walk to the adjacent field to see the horses while we waited.

The children squealed with excitement and ran to the fence.

"Horses only have a single toe on each foot just like a rhinoceros," my husband said just like the host on the Nature Channel. "And they have 44 teeth."

They looked at him suspiciously. Then the horse closest to us lifted up its tail. My 3-year old son rubbed his eyes as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"No, no horsie," he said. "Bad horsie."

"Gross," my daughter said as I quickly guided them back to the waiting area. When the wagon finally arrived we climbed aboard with 15 other people and sat on a hay bale while a man with a banjo stood in the back and plucked out "Old MacDonald."

"What animal should Old MacDonald have on his farm?" the man asked as the wagon lurched forward.

"Horses!" my son shouted.

"And what do horses do?" he strummed the opening chords and smiled at them.

"Poo-poo!"

Suddenly I felt the wagon speed up, and I wondered if the banjo player and the driver had some kind of secret sign.

When we disembarked at the pumpkin field, the driver told us we had 20 minutes to choose our pumpkins and be back on board for the return trip.

"Look at this one, Mom!" My daughter held up an average looking pumpkin. "It's perfect! Wait! Look at this one!" She dropped it and lifted an identical one.

As my children progressed down the row, I wondered what happened to people who missed their ride back. I began to imagine my family wandering through the field and living off of pumpkin seeds and a Capri Sun juice drink until someone sent out a rescue party after realizing the hill in the parking lot was really our car buried underneath a two-foot layer of dirt.

My husband started singing "Ten Little Pumpkins" and I took out my camera and started taking pictures. I lost track of the time trying to keep up with my children until I noticed the other families lining up at the wagon.

"We need to find our pumpkin quickly," I said. "We're taking the next one you touch."

They nodded, then galloped down the last row and threw their arms around the long-lost cousin of the Great Pumpkin.

As we slowly rolled it across the field, I wondered how long four people could live off one Capri Sun juice drink in case the wagon was gone by the time we got there. However, the driver and all the passengers were waiting for us and they helped us to hoist it up. My children sat proudly on either side of it.

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Debbie Farmer can be reached at debbie@ecis.com.

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