The pumpkin kings

By Rose Hansen, October 1, 2015

Jon partnered up with our insane(ly wonderful) neighbor Loren to plant a giant pumpkin patch in a spare corner of our front hay field. We sort of scratch our heads at most of the ideas Loren tosses out. He’s most certainly at least just a tiny bit insane but he’s also probably a genius, so we go along with it. When he suggested pumpkins and told us to wait until the 4th of July to plant in time for a Halloween harvest, we obeyed.

And the pumpkins, for the most part, started out fine.

They planted a couple different varieties and then, for the most part, left them completely alone.

I know lots of people who use this approach, people who claim their pumpkins sprout from long-forgotten seeds and take over the gardens. They don’t need encouragement. They are opportunists.

The pumpkin patch is semi-inconvenient to get to, particularly in the buggy muggy summer months, so I’m guilty of completely ignoring it after I took the above photos. When my friend Hannah came back to visit a couple weeks ago, we drank about three thousand Mexican Mules and drove around on the four-wheelers and made a trek out to the pumpkin patch around 3 a.m. and couldn’t spot any pumpkins. Like most other crops from this crummy summer, I concluded that they simply hadn’t made it.

I mentioned it to Jon the next day and he got so defensive and shut-down that I figured I was right and he just wasn’t ready to accept the truth. (Note: this is not solid martial advice.) It sort of evolved into a joke in the following days–the joke of Jon’s failed pumpkin patch, which he didn’t find very funny at all.

So imagine my surprise when he called last night just as the sun was sinking down and told me to come down to the barn, because he had a surprise.

Not one, but three truckloads of pumpkins plucked right from the pumpkin patch.

The guys drove them down to the barn and then parked to celebrate with a couple beers. It was a very nice evening, all things considered. And there’s not much to consider. Life is simple.