Blogtober: Day 27 Pumpkin Picking

A lot of my friends have been taking their children pumpkin picking for several years now.  I have to admit I was very skeptical as to how this would be fun.  After all essentially this is visiting a field full of pumpkins.  I grew up with a Dad working on a farm and so spent many childhood days in farmers’ field but I wondered if it would cut the mustard for the technology fuelled generation?

Rory was absolutely in his element from the moment he arrived.  He proudly told the lady greeting that it was his first time and was delighted when she invited him to chose a wheel barrow.  He had a wonderful time pushing it around the fields collecting pumpkins.  He also loved going round inspecting each pumpkin and choosing which ones he liked best.

For Rowan it was a very different experience.  He really enjoyed picking up the pumpkins and loading them into the wheelbarrow.  The ones he couldn’t lift he enjoyed rolling around.  He was fascinated at being surrounded by thousands of pumpkins.

My poor husband was under strict orders that he was to bring his camera and take some nice photos of the boys.  He is not really a ‘donning the wellies’ type of guy but he really got into the spirit of the occasion and took some fantastic photos of the boys too.

We went to quite a simplistic venue I think.  It was essentially a couple of fields full of pumpkins.  I think we could have travelled further afar and found other pumpkin related attractions alongside the pumpkin picking but we enjoyed the simplicity and it was a lovely way to spend an hour!

It’s very true what veterans tell you -you will not come away with only one or two pumpkins.  We bought an entire wheelbarrow full of pumpkins which I have used to decorate our home and the boys will carve the larger ones.  They were so reasonable priced and I liked the idea that we were supporting a local farming family rather than a huge supermarket.  When halloween is over, they won’t be wasted as we’ll turn them into a range of pumpkin treats including soup, stews and pie!

I definitely think we’ve started a new family tradition for us.