Our Search For the Great Pumpkin Continues

We started our search at the barbershop, where I managed to squeeze four boys into the cue before the lunch crowd hit. There were some grumpy old men sitting in those chairs while they waited for one boy, then another… and then… well, you can imagine. “Never before have I had to wait so long to get a daggone haircut,” one said. “I kept my head buried in a magazine.”

Next, we stopped off at my favorite kid restaurant while my 13-year-old ate a plate of meatball sliders (must try this recipe at home); the other kids ate pizza, while I had the goat cheese bruschetta with the chopped salad. The kids were so content, I almost ordered a glass of wine; but settled on tea. The bags were, unfortunately, not silk.

Next, I pulled out GPS (didn’t feel like getting lost) and punched in the address for a pumpkin patch I found, on the internet, far outside of town. My 13-year-old asked, “does it have a corn maze?” I said, “Yes.” He SMILED and silently said, “yesssss.” From that point, with that single yes uttered from the mouth of a 13 year old, I felt as if I had just been handled a box from Tiffany’s. Life is good.

The drive to the pumpkin patch was far entertaining that we anticipated. First, there was one large cement Holstein cow on a lawn; followed by another house with two more cement Holstein cows; these were placed directly on the cement walk leading up to the house. One can only wonder about the placement of those two cows. The people living there must not get too much company. Or does everyone just come in through the back? Anywho, I love this style of country living… the kind of house where the front door is sealed shut, 12 months out of the year, “to keep the cold out.” I’ve spent many an afternoon as a kid playing Twister in a house just like that.

When we finally pulled into the pumpkin patch, I felt even more joy when I saw a zip line dangling high from the sky. “Something for every age group.”

We paid our $35 admission price – I know – right out in the middle of nowhere — and proceeded to the barn to play in the hay slides,
DSC_0006 DSC_0018 DSC_0021

Jumped on the giant pumpkin
DSC_0068

Then,

DSC_0071

Drove

DSC_0045

tractors,

DSC_0054

And even I went

DSC_0066

down the

big slide,

DSC_0061

And then headed to the corn maze.

dsc_0024
Now, the corn maze was interesting.

The corn didn’t “do that well,” so the maze was primarily made from prairie grass – which was trampled in several spots. I lost the boys several times; I decided to just wait at the exit for them all to come out; but the little boys would hear nothing of that — they drug me in. Somehow, amazingly, we all found each other at the end.
DSC_0026

On the way home, we joked that they could have saved themselves the trouble and just made the corn maze out of soybeans.

Then, we proceeded

DSC_0035

to the

baby zip line

DSC_0032

And the

DSC_0091

big-kid

DSC_0086

zip

DSC_0087

line.

DSC_0090
And it was so cold I felt like it was going to start snowing any minute.
DSC_0079

We went inside of the barn to stay warm, with the animals, but it was still freezing.
DSC_0100

Finally, we went to the pumpkin area to pick out our pumpkins… but I stopped. If my blood wasn’t cold before, now it was freezing. The pumpkins were tagged with a number… 25, 50, 35, 12… “What were these stickers for I asked?”

That was the price… in dollars.

And this was after our $35 admission fee.

We settled for a beautiful large squash, priced at $7,
DSC_0101

and took him home.
DSC_0102

Our search for pumpkins will probably lead us to Krogers – where we can find them for about $3.00, each.

And then, after that, we stopped at Macy’s (yes… with all four boys) to buy some new clothes for my 13-year-old, and we ended up down on our knees cleaning the straw up off the floor in the dressing room… but that’s another story.

, ,
One comment to “Our Search For the Great Pumpkin Continues”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *