doing unnatural things with gourds...

It is October.

month of leaves and moons changing color.

month of harvest.

month of bringing in plants late at night that we really shouldn't have purchased in the first place given where we live because it is going to freeze.

month of apples and people doing odd, semi-violent, and definitely unnatural things to innocent gourds.

I speak of that oh so magical wonderland located east of the city of bridges and beards, home of fall bearing fruit trees, aging yuppy windsurfers and best of all... wait for it...

PUMPKIN FUNLAND!!!

(nothin' says fun... or night terrors.. like a punkin' headed hipster or two...  check out the beards. Oh, and by the way, you have died of dysentery, sorry.)

so...

once a year, we drive up the gorge, we buy many pumpkins for the FQ's teachin' and ed-u-ca-dudication type stuff and apples, many, many apples.

If you don't know, there are more than "red", "yellow", "green", and "jolly rancher" (which are also green) types of apples.

And finally, finally, when the all-overs have subsided, we enter PUMPKIN FUNLAND!!!

Pick a theme: Iconic Movies, maybe. Or The Fifty States (capitals are important, as are capitols). Or maybe Presidents. Whatever. Then imagine that the farm elves who run PUMPKIN FUNLAND!!! created what you imagined out of random s###t they found in the attic, plus gourds. So many, many, squash like, gourd like things that become heads and feet and bodies, and creatures.

There are hand-lettered signs describing each vignette.

Sometimes they are misspelled, and they often cannot control their apostrophes.
(Note: it is NOTTTTTTTT apostrophe's because nothing belongs to the apostrophe!).

But that is part of the charm.

(this would be an arty picture, or an accident, let's go with art)

After PUMPKIN FUNLAND!!! we end up at a pub somewhere, eating average food and (Phrodaux) drinking average beer but enjoying the month that is October. Sometimes an old timey steam train would be a-chuggin' by, but that might be the beer. Everything smells like apples (or beer). And it's a whole year before we have to see The Wizard of Oz acted out in gourds (BEER!).

(ah, that pumpkin afterglow...)

(no matter how many times Phrodaux suggests it, he still is waiting for "Showgirls: The Movie" done in pumpkins, but the restraining order is a good sign.)