A very pumpkin weekend

Friday was spent at a local farm learning about beans, corn, carrots and radishes ... and picking pumpkins of course. Saturday was spent at the zoo watching the annual "Pumpkin Bash". And Sunday was spent carving pumpkins!

Kara's school group with Farmer Dave.

How patiently they all listened before being allowed to pick their own pumpkin.

"This one mumma - I think this one will be mine. Can you take a photo of my pumpkin mumma?"

The kids had to wait until everyone had some apple to feed the pigs - what patience! Kara has stopped being scared of animals behind fences - yippee ... and she even petted the goats this time without being coaxed (although peer pressure may have had something to do with this).

So the annual Pumpkin Bash at the zoo was great, or at least the parts I saw (I gave up my prime viewing spot so Kara could get a look-see instead of me ... sigh).

Each year they select various animals and throw enormous pumpkins into their cages or areas. Now I adore hippos so I could not resist dragging my family to see 3 incredibly big pumpkins being rolled into the hippo pool where 3 hungry, hungry hippos were waiting to chomp down on those beasts! It was shoulder room only (and Kara is so lucky that she has a 6 ft 4 dad!). All I could hear were a lot of "oohs" and "wows" and "look at that hippo daddy!!!"). Kara talked about it the whole weekend. So alas, I did not get a photo of my darling hippos, but the next animals were the monkeys who preferred to groom their pumpkins instead of attacking them. (Unfortunately the tigers were during nap time ... but there's always next year).

I had been warned that kids typically only join in pumpkin carving for about 5 minutes (the scooping out the goo part) and leave the parent to do the rest, but Kara stayed intrigued for the whole time. She scooped and scraped and would have wielded the knife had I let her.


She was soooooo excited lighting her pumpkin. And guess what? This was mummy's very first carved pumpkin! (Australian's aren't big Halloween followers). I was extremely proud of our "Jack" ... and Kara and I have spent the last 2 nights talking with Jack before she goes to bed (literally, it's pitch black outside and in the 40's, but we spend about 15 minutes talking to Jack and asking him to keep us safe from "spooky creatures").

Not the best shot of moi, but I like to include the photos that Kara takes of us (although there were about 4 shots of the floor and ceiling before this was taken).