It is Labor Day and as I start to work in the pumpkin field – old times come flooding back. These memories speak of times when all the acreage across the road was full of the bright orange orbs and working out in the slight change of season was a welcome event. This was before parenthood and woodchucks found my husband and me I can’t remember when we decided to not sell pumpkins anymore. It could have been when the huge Amish family moved in six miles down the road and put in a crop. And with their low overhead and penchant for incredibly hard work, it was an easy decision to make. By then though, our place was known as the pumpkin house – even today I am reminded of this when I give out my address “Oh, you live in the pumpkin house. We took a field trip to your pumpkin patch in 4^th grade.”  Even as I write this I am forced to smile. I’ve always loved pumpkins; bright orange orbs of pleated happiness. Planting, weeding, curing and harvesting have given me good foundation in teaching and parenting. I have learned that the huge, bright orange ball in the center of the field – the one that screams perfection causing me to run headlong to the field’s center is, more often than not, hiding something that could rot the entire endeavor if left unchecked. I know too not to ignore the ones that stay green longer than their neighbors – even those sprouting from the same hill. No two are alike – ever. I am smiling too at the memory of my son – a baby still, not quite a year bundled and propped up between two pumpkins about his size and weight as he sucks happily on a bottle. By his second year he is out in the field with us, his wagon wheels dragging the entangled vines that somehow do not trip him as he attempts to lift (always) the biggest pumpkin he could get his young arms around.

We used to take our bright orange product into town and Wegman’s supermarket that took everything we could get to them but we stopped after one year. An anti-capitalist move I suppose but nothing, nothing could be worth the smile on the face of the two-old girl working her little fingers around two smaller pumpkins. “If she can carry them she can have them –said her mother,” Or my seven-year-old son proudly sitting atop a pile of orange beauties he and his dad brought to the sorting area. It was easier to put our own signs up – one and two dollar piles – three- dollars for the giants. Many a weekend writing time was spent listening to the trill of the valley’s young forever in search of the perfect pumpkin. And perfection in pumpkins, as in children, is relative. Yes, there may be a few woodchuck bites but with a bit of artistic nurturing (carving?) these scars can harden into a  creative   scar tissue that in adulthood will be called wisdom.  It has been almost 20 years since our last serious pumpkin crop and today the bright orange beauty screaming perfection from the center of the field does not seduce me. History tells a different truth.  And by the time I’ve moved to the center, cutting and setting encouraging pumpkins to the side, I can see the gaping hole in what had, earlier, shrieked for my attention.

Our sales policy too has changed; we will not be putting out the old coffee cans suggesting a dependence on the honor of strangers. In fact that last year we sold pumpkins was the first year we had to use a locked box – anchored to a table. Up to that point it had been eight years of honest human interaction.  Did everyone always pay? No. But I still have the notes from those of reduced circumstances conferring blessings and good karma upon us and our household for providing pumpkins. One event that stands out occurred on a Friday evening just before Halloween – a young father knocked on our front door wanting to know if we had any pumpkins left.  He had been driving by our house all week, to and from work, hoping there would pumpkins left on this, his payday. That year we sold out early – (even the blemished ones) and my heart sank when I looked at the empty side lawn and the thought of his sad six-year-old at home just waiting for a pumpkin to carve. I left the young father at the door to collect two pumpkins from our personal carving stash on the back deck. I handed him the two pumpkins and refused his money. This much happiness should not be for sale.

So, I anticipate another four to six weeks of pumpkin moving – this activity will certainly offset the zumba lessons I had promised to attend. In the past, moving, and handling pumpkins, I have on average lifted about   1000 to 1500 pounds in a good crop year. This season, maybe I’ll average a third of that  – the labor of the woodchucks seems to have blessed me so.