Pumpkin Time

It's a little early, but Sunday was such a beautiful day that, after lunch with Baby Cele, we took the little girls pumpkin hunting. We usually go to a place in Ventura, but it was late afternoon so we chose a patch closer to home - and it was great, even better (and less costly) than our old spot.

They had wagons for hauling punkins - hills for climbing - the pumpkins had all been harvested and brought down to the field, but Naia insisted on climbing up, with Leia in dogged pursuit.

There was a haystack for climbing - and picture taking - and best of all, there were hundreds of pumpkins in every size, color and shape.Our family rule has always been that you have to be able to lift the pumpkin by yourself in order to take it home. When our kids were growing up, it kept the size (and damage to dad's back) reasonable. Last year, we had to strictly enforce the rule with Naia and Miles - they were definitely working under the belief that bigger (and bigger) is better.

I reminded Naia of the rule before we left home but it turns out I needn't have bothered. This is Franklin. And Betsy is about the same size. Bobby, her third choice, is bigger and should make a nice jack-o-lantern for Halloween.

Leia wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. She liked looking at the pumpkins and loved climbing both the hill and the haystack. Every now and then, she'd pick up a pumpkin, carry it for a minute, and then carefully set it down near other pumpkins. She finally decided on this one - the perfect size for a little girl.

We were at the patch for less than an hour, got 3 mini-pumpkins, 2 medium pumpkins, 1 watermelon . . .

Monkey see, monkey do.
Naia puts Franklin on her head? Leia does the same.

and took about 70 photos. A shot a minute; not bad for me. (and thank heavens for digital cameras!)

click any photo to enlarge