"...the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumkin patch..."

I carved my very first pumpkin tonight!  WOO HOO!  I did good too! 

I remember pumpkin carving as a young child.  My dad carved the worlds greatest pumpkins.  In upstate NY, not long after apple season, was pumpkin season.  Each year in late September we would go to the apple orchards, pick what seemed like a hundred apples, bring them home, peel 'em up, and my father would make the worlds best apple pies with us from scratch.  Then, usually about the 2nd week of October, we would go to the pumpkin patches and dad would let each of us three kids pick out a pumpkin for ourselves, (as big as we wanted as long as we could carry our own), bring 'em home and he would carve a pumkin for each of us.  He would carve whatever face we asked him to.  Happy faces, scary faces, funny faces, crooked faces, whatever we wanted.  He would do it and they would be the best pumpkins on the entire block.  Dad rocked.  He was the worlds best pumpkin carver.  Did I say that already?

So each year since I have lived on my own (18 years now) I have said to myself, "This is it, this year I am going to buy a pumpkin and carve one myself!"  About 6 or 7 years ago, I even went so far as to buy one of those little pumpkin carving kits with the patterns you can use to carve and the little pumpkin carving knives in it.  Cute little kit.  But I never actually bought the pumpkin.  Well this was finally my year.  Maybe it was finally living in a part of the county that gets cool in the fall again.  Maybe it was because I can go outside here and smell Halloween in the air (something I am convinced that only a true northerner can relate to).  Who knows.  But I bought me a pumpkin.  And tonight, after having it sit on my counter for a week, I dug through my drawers, found my little pumpkin carving kit, picked out a cool witch pattern and carved my pumpkin!

I have a whole new respect for my dad.  First of all, scooping pumpkin glop from the center of a pumpkin didn't bother me nearly as much as a kid as it did tonight.  I swear I remember it coming out in one clean batch as a kid.  I know 18 years isn't quite enough for pumpkin evolution to have taken it's toll, so I must have blocked it out.  I also know that there isn't a chance in hell that i had anything to do with the actual carving part.  My wrists will never bethe same.  And i can do 50 pushups!!! By the time I was done mangling this pumpkin to within an inch of it's life, i was covered in pumpkin gloop, seeds, and underneath my nails was orange.    But damn.  It was worth it.  I did a pretty bang up job (that took every minute of two hours).  I got the seeds roasting in the oven and a candle burning in the center.  I love Halloween. 

I know I will go to bed tonight hoping that the Great Pumpkin will rise up out of the pumpkin patch and pick my pumpkin as the best pumpkin on the block.