Pumpkin Pickin'

LAST year was our first visit to a pumpkin farm. I was quite amazed, I must say. So when we had company from England in October this year, I knew this would be an obligatory part of the week's itinerary.

The visit began with a hayride sitting in a wagon actually filled with hay. Emma was intrigued that we were sitting on the "horse's food". We drove through fields of vines with pumpkins still ripening, and rows of picked fruit waiting for transportation.

The main visitor area was filled with the usual cheesy accoutrements such as country music and painted photo ops, but it was fascinating to see quite how many pumpkin and gourd varieties could be grown locally. As the picture shows, Emma "can't know which one I like".

In comparison to the bustle of the farm, lunch was a peaceful affair enjoyed on the bank of a nearby creek. We hesitantly made our way on wobbly stones across the water, trying for once not to get our feet wet. We failed. Our slippery crossing did however show us the way to a shed snake skin and a mottled brown grasshopper-type creature that was so well disguised in the pebbles that it almost met a very sticky end from my hand.

That evening, a delicious butternut squash soup was just the ticket. We would have enjoyed the pumpkin bread we'd bought at the farm along with it, except we couldn't find it. The wrapper turned up later in the yard. Chewed. Hmm, I wonder who that could have been... BASIL.