I got caught up in the allure of doing this before I fully realized what it entailed. Mature pumpkins have little thorns. The ground is very muddy. The pumpkins are caked with both wet and dry mud. You have to saw the squash off the vine and then load it into a wheelbarrow and cart it to your car. The pumpkins aren't set up in a nice row, organized by size.
Basically, the pumpkin buyer is saving the farmer from having to pay laborers to do this work. And since I've never actually purchased a pumpkin from a patch of any sort before, I was really glad they had a section set up with clean, nicely shaped, priced pumpkins in a tent off in the corner. Complete with petting zoo. (Actually the petting zoo was a cage filled with about fifty goats and one pig.)
But the primary reason for our visit was to take advantage of the beautiful colors and get some great pictures. We have to have proof that we did something to celebrate these little holidays with Annabelle, right?
