The Patch

Since our favorite pumpkin patch decided to close two years ago after twenty consecutive years of family visits, I’ve had a hard time developing a new gourd-growing relationship. I’ve tried new patches and even gave growing my own pumpkins a shot (with no success). Last year, for the first time in my kids’ lives, I didn’t even have the heart to try taking them to a replacement patch. I just couldn’t do it. And now I have guilt over that. Aargh. I liked the old pumpkin patch and I don’t like change. Bad combination when the place you’re used to hangs up their vines and quits. So, not wanting to experience more didn’t-give-my-child-pumpkin-patch-memories angst, I started looking for a new place to get the pumpkins we don’t actually carve, just leave hanging around the porch until they get gross and “disappear.” Coincidentally, I saw a flyer a few months ago advertising a farm tended by a local high school and pinned it to the bulletin board in the kitchen--where I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it until Halloween loomed mere moments away. The ad promised a “tractor exhibit” and “harvest games” along with “cranberry beans” to go with your plain old pumpkins. So, we went. Where we experienced “nature.“ And Scarlett and Keilana pretended to barf over the pumpkin guts splattered on the ground. Good times. In Norman Stiles Farmer Grover, the blue muppet spends a day on the farm doing gross stuff. But he doesn’t barf.

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Farmer_Grover_%28book%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Stiles