Pumpkins!

We finally made our annual trip to the local pumpkin patch yesterday!

Hodges dairy is less than 5 minutes from our house, we drive past it on our way almost everywhere.  Which means we get to watch the entire growing season.

  I think 4  years ago might have been the first time they did a pumpkin patch and every year we have watched them add a little bit more to the experience.

We love how wonderful they are.  I recall the first year being rather broke, and finding a 20 in the car diaper bag secreted away.  I knew the rough prices of the pumpkins but I really wanted one for each of us.  I was so worried we wouldn't have enough.   Turns out 20 was more than enough, they even threw in free local honey. We have been pretty broke most years, but we always budget a 20 for the pumpkins.  On years we aren't broke we go most months just to buy honey.

Every fall it has been the same price, even though the family keeps growing, we still always get enough pumpkins for each of us, at only $20.  I don't know if they give us the cute kid discount or if they just like to let us feel special, but I do know it is one of our favorite traditions.  This year it was a different girl running the register and she threw in extra gourds instead of honey.

When I am pregnant we always pick out a tiny pumpkin for the baby to be, along with the rest of us.  This year we found a tiny, marble sized, baby pumpkin.  I told the kids it was perfect, and I am NOT pregnant.  We let them take it home anyway, but only after they were strictly admonished NOT to call it 'Baby 6's pumpkin'.  Because it isn't, Little one is only 4 months old and I am not even slightly pregnant.  Just so we are clear.

The fellow in charge (Mr Hodges?)  spoke with us and mentioned 'cooking pumpkins'  I have no idea how you tell what a cooking pumpkin is, and if there were any we acquired it was an accident.  I really have no idea how pumpkin gets in a can and this isn't the year for me to learn, though someday I would love to be one of those folk who makes pumpkin pie from pumpkin rather than from a can.

This year I just wanted to learn to cook the seeds.  I went to Almost Unschoolers for a recipe because she had some pumpkin things recently.  Hers called for cinnamon and sugar, but I just wanted the regulation salted kind, so I followed the recipe minus the sugar and cinnamon.  For the first time the seeds are edible!  I am not fond of them, but everyone else in the house loves them.  I've tried roasting pumpkin seeds three or 4 times, and this is the first time they were eaten.  (two attempts were before I had my own kids)

Some years we don't carve the pumpkins at all, mostly those two very pregnant years.  This year Dude wanted to carve one.  He did most of the work by himself.  Daddy did a lot of sitting around watching, I did a lot of nursing, and both Little Man and Princess did a lot of looking over his shoulder.

No photo, more due to worry my computer will infect my camera than anything else.  Instead let's test my descriptive skills.  'It was a dark and stormy afternoon.....'

On second thought let's not.  Just the facts, he carved two triangle eyes, a square (ish) nose and a row of diamond cut outs for teeth.  It looks like some kind of robot drawing.  Dude says the teeth are chomping so fast the diamonds are the blur you see.  He is a royal goof-ball , that is for sure.

The rest of the kids decorated their pumpkins with markers.  Princess wanted paint, but Daddy was taking a nap, and I was nursing Little One (yes again).  Since the last time Princess got paint out all the green was dumped on the floor, she decided to use markers and not try to get the paint down herself.

Maybe after Sunday I will cut open the rest of the pumpkins and bake the seeds if the kids don't mind.