Hunting Pumpkins

We tried something new this year: The Pumpkin Hunt at Butterfield Acres Children's Farm.



Uncle Brad and his fiancee Katie were in town to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, so we wanted some fun things to do. Since Butterfield Acres is only a mile away from Grandma & Grandpa's house (and our house), we figured it would be a simple activity to do without a lot of driving around.



It was simple, but it was also pretty cold. Most of our family was decked out in multiple layers of clothing, but we still welcomed the blankets that Grandma pulled out for the hayride. Well, I guess there was no hay, so it was a wagon ride.













We got to pet some bunnies and see the baby chicks before it was time for our hayride wagon ride out to the "pumpkin patch", a designated spot in the forest where the "pumpkin fairy" had deposited one pumpkin per child visitor.







With our pumpkins in hand we were ready for a ride back to the heated buildings to decorate our pumpkins and wait for the pumpkin fairy to come sprinkle them with fairy glitter. I have never heard much about the pumpkin fairy before. Honestly, I think future-auntie Katie had more direct impact on little Katie's pumpkin than any purported fairy. Auntie-Fairy-Katie put on a clinic in pumpkin aesthetics, in fact. Well done.



Speaking of fairy dust and miracles, Scott suddenly decided to make amends with animal nemesis #2 -- the goat. In September he hit a new high in animal paranoia, where he started checking carefully for dogs before he would step out of the car, sometimes bringing up hypothetical scenarios featuring aggressive dogs. It was clearly on his mind a lot. Then one time we were out for a walk near Bowness park (the time the kids wore costumes to go throw rocks in the river) and Scott was so concerned about the dogs that people were walking along the same pathway that I was picking him up (and Katie of course) every few steps. Exasperated, I told him that he had to get over this issue because it was taking all the fun out of going out and doing things outside. I have tried reasoning unsuccessfully with him on this topic so often that I had all but given up on a logical argument, so I was surprised to hear him say that he was going to not be afraid of dogs anymore. We didn't see any more dogs on our walk back to car, but I could see that he was much more relaxed about it.



This trip to the farm was about 3 weeks later, and he shocked me again when he asked to go into the goat pen, because he wanted to see "his friends the goats." His fear of the goats used to be so intense that he could hardly enjoy being in the bunny warren because he was so concerned that a gang of goat ruffians would knock down the fence and attack him. Now he wanted to pose with each goat before we could leave to go home.

Maybe there is something to this pumpkin fairy.