Each year, we make a trip to the pumpkin patch. Somewhere along the line, the pumpkin patch became a place for games, climbing, mazes, slides, small animals... and not so much about picking out a pumpkin. We actually pay money to let our kids run around, on, and through straw bales, play on swings, slides, and tractor tires, take a wagon ride, watch goats climbing up and down ramps, and look at a few baby animals in some pens. Then at the end, we quick go out to the patch and check out the pumpkins and in to check out the produce. We usually get a pretty good view of the pumpkin patch from the wagon ride, and this year we noticed that the pumpkins didn't look that great. One of the fields were giant pumpkins and are "more for decoration than carving" because of the tough skin. And, the really good carving pumpkins weren't ripe yet because the field was planted late. They double plant most of the their fields, and with the cooler, wet weather this year, whatever was in that field took longer to ripen than normal, so they didn't get their pumpkins in early enough to ripen for Halloween. Again, the cooler summer made for slow growing. We went out and took some pictures with the big pumpkins anyway, and bought a white "spooky" pumpkin from the market there. The kids had fun, and it was a beautiful afternoon.
We've been having fires almost every weekend since the weather has been just cool enough in the evenings to be comfortable by the fire. My kids love s'mores, or just plain marshmallows, but still need help roasting their marshmallows. Otherwise they end up covered in ash or on fire.
We've done a little leaf blowing and the kids love jumping in the piles of leaves. The other day we piled them up at the end of the slide and they slid down over and over and landed in the pile. They've been playing in the leaves for days, but today Tim said he was going to mulch and compost them. :( Good thing there are still some left on the trees!
