Autumn

I love Autumn! I love the crispness of the air; the awesome leaf display that God graciously creates for us to enjoy; fresh crunchy apples and of course a multitude of pumpkins, squash and gourds. We love to go to the pumpkin patch as a family and enjoy the various activities offered by different farmers. Some have corn mazes, pumpkin chucking contests, apple bobbing....loads of fun fall activities.

We do not, however celebrate halloween in any fashion. No matter how you dress it up, flip it around or churchify it, it is still a satanic holiday and therefore we don't participate. So you may ask yourselves, then why do you go to the pumpkin patch??

That my friend is simple enough....WE LIKE PUMPKIN! The girls and I make pumpkin puree and freeze if for the winter. We make pumpkin bread, muffins, cookies and of course pies. I'm tempted to try pumpkin soup this year, but the husband insists he will not eat it. We'll also make toasted pumkin seeds to snack on, and save a few seeds to plant next year in our own garden.

Since we moved to a new city in July, we ventured to a new "patch" to get our pumpkins this fall. This particular trip was fun (with the exception of Lindsey's screaming at the guy dressed as a scarecrow type thing). She has a thing about costumes...totally "freaks me out" she says. And it does! Even the Chick-fila cow sends her into hysteria.

So...let me back up. The pumpkins, gourds and squash were already picked and boxed individually for each child. The large pumpkins had silly faces drawn on them and the children were supplied with a vast array of paints to use on their pumpkins. Olivia and Lindsey were blissfully painting away, when it happened. Lindsey spotted the guy in the costume and the screaming began. Uncontrollable screaming, shaking from head to toe. I felt bad for the poor guy, I'm pretty sure that he was traumatized. Then his employer sent him packing faster than anything I've seen in a long time. He came back later....less the costume and after the screaming stopped. He made every attempt to befriend Lindsey, but she watched him with a wary eye. Two weeks later, she's still asking why the man had on the costume.

For $15 we came away with 6 pumpkins, 8 squash, 4 sunflower seed heads and a bunch of dried flowers. So we kept some of the sunflower seeds and the dried flower seeds to plant next year. The remaining sunflower heads were put outside the kitchen window so we could watch the squirrels munch on them.

So, here are a couple of photos of the painting process. I'm thinking this was before the freak out incident...I don't see any evidence of puffy red eyes or a runny nose.