Column: Guest Column, by Jana Gray

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. Crisp mornings, few rainy days, and yet there’s still some nice warm weather.

There are always fun things to go do in the fall. Though my girls are getting older, we used to spend a fun afternoon at Farmer John’s Pumpkin Patch. We would search high and low for the perfect pumpkin.

Trinity would look for the best shape, perfect color, no broken stem and little dirt on it. She would find one that she could carry to the wagon and a few other small ones to go with it. For Destiny, on the other hand, we would search all over the biggest pumpkin that she could never carry. We would put one in the wagon that we thought was the biggest and then continue searching just to make sure it was the biggest one, and fit what she was looking for.

Then we would head back to the silos and go and play on those. While wandering around, we would pet every cat or kitten that we could see. Then we would go into the barn to see what other treasures there were, and maybe we could find just one more pumpkin that we can’t live without.

I have never been the one to cut open the pumpkin and dig all of the seeds and guts out. The thought of putting my hand inside the pumpkin gives me the goosebumps. Plus, the smell isn’t my favorite.

So we improvise by me cutting the pumpkin, the girls gut it out, we negotiate on the face, and we begin sawing the pumpkin. We try to stick to the basic designs: triangle eyes, circle nose and a few fang teeth.

Even as the girls get older we always make it fun. It was always fun to take them to some of the fall festivities and enjoy the outside activities before winter is here.

 

Jana Gray is the advertising director at the Austin Daily Herald.