Punkin harvest

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock--

When the frost is on the punpkin and the fodder's in the shock.

--James Whitcomb Riley

Pumpkins wait to be unloaded from a hay wagon. We've been raising and selling pumpkins for nearly twenty years. In May Dad rounds up a crew of helpers, stuffs packages of seeds in his shirt pocket and finds his favorite hoe. Dad paces the distance between the hills of pumpkins and then breaks up the ground with a hoe. One of the helpers stoops to push two pumpkin seeds into the ground and cover them lightly with dirt.

Catch and toss is the rhythm of unloading the small pie pumpkins from the wagon. Logan and Naomi, on the wagon, toss the pumpkins to Libby or Betsy who then relay them to Brian who lines them in rows to be sold. The two pumpkins behind Libby had their stems broken during the process. Without their "handles" the pumpkins are no longer good for decoration.

The display of pumpkins is reflected in a puddle in the driveway. Our family doesn't celebrate Halloween. With our roadside stand we try to communicate thanks to God for the harvest and provide our customers a place to purchase pumpkins that doesn't glorify the devil through skeletons, ghosts and jack-o-lanterns.