Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Pumpkins from our Next-Door-Neighbors

The family who owns the drive-in that we live next door to also owns a pumpkin patch! And when your next-door-neighbors own a pumpkin patch, well, it just wouldn't be neighborly not to stop on by one Sunday afternoon, now would it?

We are nothing if not neighborly, especially when movies and pumpkins are involved:






The Freemans open up one of their barns so that you can pet some of their animals (and yes, this is the place where a pony bit Syd ON THE FACE one year--she has much better horsemanship skills now than when she was five), and they've also got plenty of toys out for the toddlers.

Like this one!

Only I guess the toddlers aren't riding their ponies like a bucking bronco...

Part of the fun of a visit to the pumpkin patch is taking a long, long hayride around the Freemans' property, across a creek and through the woods:
Will is behind Matt, who was completely incapable of getting out of my way so that I could photograph her.

See this photo of Syd?

The guy driving the tractor for our hayride was smoking (I know, I know...), and so Syd, of COURSE, pulled a piece of hay out of the bale underneath her and pretended to smoke it while pretending to be a tractor driver. I said to her, "What are you DOING?!?"

She said brightly, "I'm smoking wheat!"

Now you say it. Say it out loud, like an eight-year-old would.

I laughed my butt off, absolutely inappropriately, then of course got her to tell me what she was doing about eight hundred more times, and each time it make me collapse into gales of inappropriate laughter all over again.

I know, I know. But to be fair, our family anti-smoking campaign clearly isn't that effective thus far, if the kid is happily pretending to smoke just like the tractor driver. Mental note to show her some photos of cancerous lungs during our human biology unit.

Our haul was two perfect Jack-o-lantern pumpkins and one perfect pie pumpkin. The Jack-o-lanterns have been kid-carved and made their debut at last weekend's housewarming party, but that pie pumpkin is going to have to wait til after all the party clean-up has been completed (crock pot liners SUCK!!!) before I settle down to prepping it.

So, like, next week? Week after? 

Thanksgiving, maybe?

5 comments:

Tina said...

Fun! And so hilarious. We had to have a conversation with Emma about "wheat" when we took a family vacation to Colorado. Every gas station had tons of items that contained cannabis and so she wanted to know what it was. I was also curious about how that worked with second hand smoke and all that so Jared and I talked about that a lot in the car. I never really looked into it because it never ended up being an issue.

How was the housewarming party? We are thinking of having one, but it seems like a lot of work. We've never had one in the past because we either didn't have enough room or didn't know anyone when we moved in.

Yeah, I hate crock-pot liners. It's a false sense of less work. I just try to get the crock filled with HOT soapy water as soon as I can.

julie said...

The housewarming party was WONDERFUL!!! It wasn't an overwhelming amount of work (although some of those crock pots are still "soaking," ahem...), and it was just really, really fun to have all of our friends from all of our different walks of life together in one place.

AND people brought us presents! I didn't even realize that people would bring us presents!

Tina said...

Cool! I had heard about presents, but I'm trying to figure out a tactful way to let people know we don't really need anything.

How far out in advance did you plan/invite people? With the holidays fast approaching, I was trying to figure out if we should hurry up and do one soon, or wait to do one after the new year. Is there a time limit on housewarming parties?

julie said...

I don't think there's a time limit. I think people know that you need plenty of time to get settled. I sent out my invitations almost two weeks in advance, and it felt like plenty of time for everyone to RSVP.

And I don't know if you should tell people no presents--among some other wonderful gifts, we got homemade jam and dilly beans, homebrewed wine, flower bulbs, and a Lowe's gift card!

Tina said...

I think I might have to find time for a party. Maybe we can make it a housewarming/game night kinda party.