Pumpkin patches again

We really have some spectacular pumpkin patches in our valley. We went back to our favorite from last year, of course, but have seen others as well. Pumpkin growing must be easy. Wish I could say that was true of our own little patch this year though. We were late getting them started (since we had to wait for our drainage issue to be resolved, which took forever) and then I think the slugs trimmed them down every time they tried to grow a new tendril. They finally started to bloom about 2 weeks ago - far too late to be found by bees with any enthusiasm at all for the job at hand.

So we went off looking for more successful plots and, as I've said, found them in abundance. We even had a sunny weekend in which to look. It is funny to watch people in search of the perfect pumpkin. Mark marches purposefully off into the patch with great enthusiasm looking, of course, for the big ones. Others look for oddly shaped ones - or perfectly shaped ones, or really, anything that isn't rotten. We ran across a woman who had been completely smitten by an absolutely huge white one which she had rolled all the way from the middle of the patch to the road and then couldn't lift into her wheelbarrow by herself. A little girl had found a little-girl-sized one that she was obviously pleased as punch with. I got sidetracked this time by the discovery of a wide variety of colorful gourds that had been planted in between the pumpkin vines and didn't really end up finding a pumpkin at all. We'll have to go back.

It was a nice way to spend a weekend, and we were happy that the weather was nice since my mother had to leave yesterday already to go home to Arizona.

Happy pumpkin hunting, everyone!