As more pumpkins ripened, the kid asked to help with the harvesting. Naturally I was happy that she wanted to help, and smiled as she donned her gardening gloves. The vines have a lot of prickers on them, and freeing the fruit requires the use of shears. It was then that I lamented on what has become of the fall activity of picking one’s own pumpkin from a patch.
Given the equipment required for the task, it occurred to me that picking pumpkins can be both (a) slightly uncomfortable, and (b) slightly hazardous. I mention this because as I look back, I realize that visiting a pumpkin patch these days typically involves driving to a field, then either selecting a pumpkin from a pile of already-picked pumpkins, or (slightly more authentic) walking through the field and selecting a pumpkin that has already been cut (and sometimes appear to have been placed there manually).
Presumably, since people pay for this, they want it as comfortable as possible, and always want to achieve the height of satisfaction for the experience. It would be one thing to go slog through the field only to find a few misshapen and moldy pumpkins, but if you were to pay for it first along with the wagon ride out there, then you become an entitled paying customer (and rightfully so).
And of course, there’s the usual concerns associated with sending a bunch of people out through your property with sharp objects.
The culmination to these concerns, therefore, is a watered-down and unauthentic experience, devoid of any proper character-building misery that enhances the elation from a successful endeavor. Every pumpkin-picking trip is the same, and therefore never a disappointment, but also then never memorable.
But I have subverted the cycle of mediocrity in this one very specific instance. The patch might have only been comprised of 3 plants, but it was real. She’ll remember this.
Plus, I got 10 pumpkins, which retail for $5 each–for a plant that volunteered and required no effort to cultivate. Sticking it to the man, in this case the evil corporate pumpkin racket.
–Simon