The Pumpkin Patch

Last Saturday we packed up the boys and headed out to a pumpkin patch. Every year we set out in the same basic direction; I-5 to River Road and then head east. This year we found a farm with a corn maze, and due to some unexplained planning on our part we managed to bring Ike’s jogging stroller along with us. It was raining pretty hard when we pulled up, and along that long stretch of road we were the only car I could see for miles. The woman at the stand seemed genuinely shocked that we had decided to brave the rains this early in October just for a few pumpkins, but Saturday was the only day this past weekend that Sweetie didn’t have to work, and since next weekend we were all going to the Seahawks game and the weekend after that Ike is back in the hospital for a bit and then it's Halloween, well I guess it just seemed like either we go now or wind up getting them mid week at some grocery store somewhere.

The corn maze was fun. They turned it into a scavenger hunt of sorts; find all four poker chips and get a free pumpkin. The older boy running just ahead, darting in and out, back and forth like an over excited puppy. Ike laughing hard, as he always does at the young boy who he thinks is the funniest brother a kid could ever have. Sweetie and myself taking up the rear, under the rain and over the mud.

After the maze, it was pumpkin searching time. I found one that reminded me of Ron Tonkin, a person from my past that I find myself obsessed with from time to time. Sweetie, who was seeing pumpkins metaphorically, picked a small one that she deemed unfit to fend for itself in the harsh damp environment of this Puyallup Valley Serengeti.

It takes the older boy longer to find his. He is not afraid of the rain or the wind, the cold or mud. He waits and wanders as long as it takes before he finally finds the one he wants, until the size and the color and the shape are exactly right. Earlier he had hidden a small green one for his cousin on the off chance that he might come to the very same pumpkin patch as us, looking for hidden green pumpkins a thoughtful cousin might have left as a gift.

But before we leave, he changes his mind and decides we should just get his cousins pumpkin now and deliver it to him as soon as we can. He runs back across the field and under a carefully stacked pile of orange, produces a dark green one the size of a grapefruit.

After we leave the pumpkin stand, where we get a flat full of what I’m sure will be the last raspberries of the season, we load up into the van and head back home. Along the banks of the river stand fishermen in their hip waders, angling for the last few catches of the year, before the river swells and muddies, and the current runs to fast.