Cucurbits

Cucurbitaceae or curcurbits are and always have been interesting to me.
I grew up on this Farm that my maternal grandfather bought from his uncle, many years ago.
It grows everything well, even the pumpkins we sell today .
“Down at Barbara’s“ my grandfather called this place all his life. Barbara is my mother .
Now it’s called Happy Jack Pumpkin Farm and my wife, two sons, their wives and their children live here, along with my 89 year old mom, Barbara.
As grown men my two brothers and I raised tobacco, and cattle for decades here. Later my wife and sons started over twenty years ago growing produce and pumpkins.
Annually thousands come out now to ride a wagon and pick a pumpkin in the fall.
It’s a real draw - one new mother with a 3 day old baby and her mom came here one pumpkin season. I looked and said “that’s a brand new baby!” The young mother said “ I told Momma I had to get out of the house! So we came out here!”
Another Mom brought her teenage daughter and the daughter’s boyfriend out and they purchased two giant pumpkins. The mom politely asked permission to go over to the firewood pile and take photos of the two which I granted.
I looked up and the Mom had the daughter, all dressed up in a elegant miniskirt and the clean cut boyfriend, cutting the bottom out of the pumpkin and eyes too - then Mom had them put the pumpkins over their heads peering through the cut out eyes! The mom took many, many photos for at least an hour as they posed sitting on the logs by the fire wood, standing up too and by the corn maze holding ears of corn up by the shucks as if it were a flower arrangement and other poses too many to count!
I always pondered if the Mom was trying to get a point across to the young teenagers about their abilities to make wise choices? ….. it was funny and I took a few pictures myself!
Suddenly a momma goat unexpectedly gave birth one afternoon while several hundred customers were here. It actually ejected from its nanny’s birth canal under the fence and a kind young lady watching the miracle instinctively reached down to the baby goat or kid they are called, and caught it before it hit the ground! The nanny (momma goat) was on one side of the fence while the kind lady was on the other, holding the dripping fresh alive and healthy kid goat. The kind lady runs to the sell shed where we collect money for pumpkin purchased and exclaimed in glee what took place and ask for my advice. I thanked her for her good deed and said “Slide it back under the fence to its mother so she can clean it up an it can nurse please” the nice lady promptly did so.
Fortunately we have many city or urban folks that come out and really have a blast!
And sure enough some have a blast before they come out to the farm!
A car came in one day before a crowd gathered, I’d say around noon. It was all erratic as it approached and I had piles of fall gourds, winter squash and exotic pumpkins of different colors in piles along the front of the pumpkin shed. I watched and it got closer and closer, missing the parking lot and it was imminent that it was going to run right into those waist high piles of fall decor!
I yelled and hooped and hollered and it stopped a nanosecond before hitting anything. The man driving was intoxicated as could be, got out all apologetic slurring his words, kinda crying a little . The four adults passengers got out - all completely sober!
So they looked around for a minute and by golly they all got back in with the intoxicated driver at the wheel again! He put it in drive and I yelled “back up!”- so he did and they left ….
Now the Watusi and longhorns cattle we have with a Scottish highlander, and a few other animals live in the field where the lane is to get back to the pumpkins.
Our sign says “Stay in Cars Large Animals are Dangerous“ and most everyone obeys driving in .
The animals have the unspoken right away and will stand in the road, we drive around them in the grass as most of our customers do …but, there are those that get completely bewildered about driving in the grass! They will sit there for 15 minutes while others drive around them.
When these good spirited customers finally get to the shed they exclaim how the animals would not move, using an amicable tone of voice. We nod our heads and smile, apologizing for the farm animals thoughtlessness towards cars ….. several kind souls have even stopped and called me on the phone to tell me they are stuck - I advise them to drive around the beast in the grass and assure them they will make it down to the sell shed in their cars (it’s down hill to our shed and over a mile off the highway) .
One lady called my wife and said she thought she was about halfway down here, but decided she was lost an turned around and went home! Then asked how to get here! Some will get here and stay an hour and ask me how to get back out to the highway- and we’re on a dead end road! Patiently I point the way out .
The bottom line is they and we enjoy the odyssey.
Then comes the babies that are nonstop coming here with their young parent and grandparents. There are many that are a month or less old - they’re dress up in pumpkin orange gowns with green collars and are lain carefully on a wagon full of orange pumpkins with green stems. The parents will move the pumpkins (much like a mother hen moving her eggs around in her nest as they are incubated), getting them positioned just right to carefully tuck the baby in for photographing. Very memorable, happy occasions for the family with a newborn!
Furthermore we’ve had many twins and a couple sets of triplets over the years - that’s quite a site!
Once, grandparents (one set) brought out triplets that were around three - two boys and one girl. I watched as the grandfather and grandmother led them by the hands toward the petting zoo and loads of pumpkins. There were several hundred people, family units here. The three siblings broke free from the grasp of their grandparents and ran full speed - in three different directions!
Even quintuplets came one year while they were toddlers! One or two TV stations came out and videotaped them! My sister Lynne an artist, painted their individual names on a pumpkin each and they all held their own pumpkin in a camera shot. They came out years later as grade school students with a school group- a teacher pointed them out to me.
We’ve had children come out that grow up and bring their children and many grandparents.
Many stories from the times on the farm - I think maybe more stories than the stars I can count on a clear night sky?