It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

This weekend was THE weekend.  It was once again time to decorate for Halloween.  Truth be told, I'm a little behind my usual schedule this year.  Normally, I assign this task to the long Labor Day weekend, but we were out of town, and then the following weekend was completely taken with birthday activities for my husband.  So, yes, I'm a little behind, but I'm proud to say it is now done, done, done.  

Last year, we were lucky enough to find a local farmer selling pumpkins from the back of a huge truck and trailer- every kind under the sun, and for awesome prices.  However, we haven't seen him so far this year, and the area he was in last year is under major road construction now, so I'm sure he has moved on. 

So, we got a little crafty this year, and decided to take a drive through the county to see if we could get lucky.  And that's just what happened!  We saw a sign up for pumpkins and followed it to the Holy Grail of pumpkin farms.  Though we had never been there before, apparently this farm has been producing pumpkin crops for almost 20 years and has a loyal following around these parts.  The farmer had to have been in his 80's, but he was scooting all over showing off the different varieties they had, telling stories and dishing on pumpkin recipes, not to mention taking me for a ride on a golf cart directly through the pumpkin fields that had yet to be harvested.  

So, we chose ourselves a great big cart and set out to all of the barns to hunt down just the right pumpkins for our annual front porch pumpkin display.  We got one of every shape, size, and color they had. 

I was especially pleased with the stalk on this one.  We spent quite some time scoping out the ones with beautiful stems.  And thankfully, my husband knows to pick them up from the bottom.  Protect that stem at all costs!!

See those giant white pumpkins in the background of this photo?  John swears they weighed 100 pounds each.  Of course, he had to have one.  So he picked the biggest, heaviest one he could find, and he looked just like Linus trying to roll his pumpkin home from the pumpkin patch. 

And this was our haul that we loaded up and took back home.  Not pictured were also hay bales and corn stalks.  Now that we have our display almost finished, I have to say I think we need more pumpkins.  I mentioned that to John just yesterday, and he just shook his head.  Thank goodness he's a good sport.  :)

What a fun afternoon we had!  And now that the weather is starting to cool, I'm really getting in the mood for Fall and Halloween.  More pictures of our Halloween displays will be coming as we get a little closer to October.  Until then, please tell me I'm not the only one decorating for Fall already, ok?