Pumpkin Patches and Corn Pits

Those beautiful pumpkins we carved came from a local pumpkin patch. For us, going and picking the pumpkins is just as important as carving them.


I had been hearing a lot about this farm a little north of us, so we decided to made the trip. I was so glad we did.

This place was way more than just a pumpkin patch! (This also equates with way more expensive than just a pumpkin patch, since all the other places we have ever gone to, the only thing we had to pay for was the pumpkins.)

We ended up spending the entire afternoon.


There was a 10 acre corn maze.



There were piggy races (I cheered on Kevin Bacon.)


There were giant slides and tractor tire mazes.




There were corn cannons to fire and goats to feed.



There was a corn pit to roll in. We continued to find corn in the boys pockets and shoes the rest of the day.



And, of course, there were pumpkins.


We road the hay crib out to the pumpkin field. The boys strolled up and down between the pumpkins, trying to pick out the very best one. We then rode the hay crib back to the barn, with arms wrapped tightly around pumpkins.



This is how pumpkin picking should be. A pumpkin patch, between fields of corn, in the middle of Iowa. This not only makes for the best pumpkins, but the best memories.

Carving Pumpkins

Pumpkin carving is a big deal in our family. A VERY big deal.

It always starts out as all of us around the table, carving together.



This year, it also involved the boys being grossed out by pumpkin innards, squealing and running away from their pumpkins as I scooped out the stringy flesh and seeds.


That's how it starts. How it ends is all the pumpkins being finished, except for Hubster's. First, because he's helping all of us, and secondly, because his designs are usually so complicated that they take a long time. The the evening ends with me falling asleep on the couch and him waking me up some while later to take pictures of all the pumpkins.

That being said, I think the pumpkins turned out quite well this year. But then again, I say that every year.

Monkey, going along with his most recent obsession, choose an Angry Birds pumpkin.


Bug decided he didn't want any help with his pumpkin. He choose his design without help, transferred it onto the pumpkin without help, and then carved it out, without help. Although I hovered nervously over him the entire time.


I tried to break with my tradition of carving a feminine pumpkin (although I still love my Maleficent pumpkin from last year) by carving a scene from Nightmare Before Christmas.


And Hubster got to carve something that makes him giggle every time...Dr. Evil.


You can also check out our pumpkins from the last few Halloweens:
Pumpkins 2010
Pumpkins 2009
Pumpkins 2008
Other Pumpkins

Candy Corn Crazy

I love candy corn. Yes, I know that it's too much sugar, loaded up with a hefty dose of artificial coloring and flavoring. But I love that candy. It's shape and color are so iconic of Halloween, not to mention that they taste good. Well, the first handful tastes good. And then I keep eating and end up feeling a little sick.

But I still love candy corn.

But do you know what is just as good as candy corn?

Candy corn ice cream. Oh, yes!


I used a recipe found here. Seriously, this stuff was so good, I think I need to make it again. (Although my taste buds and waistline slightly disagree about this.)

But candy corn can also be used for more than just guilty snacking.

It's decorating my front door.


I made a similar candy corn wreath last year. However, the instructions I was following last year had stated to cover the whole thing with Modge Podge. This didn't work at all. Trying to paint the candy corn made them all sticky and smeary. And two rainstorms into the season, my pretty wreath was a orange and yellow puddle on my front porch. So this year, I used spray varnish, which was less messy and has kept the candy off the porch and on the wreath were it belongs.


Every time I see this wreath, it makes me smile.


So there it is. At least three ways of ensuring that the myth of candy corn just being re-used each year is false!

What about you? Your thoughts on candy corn? Any more creative ways to use candy corn?

Graveyard Outing

The afternoon was partly cloud, slightly chilly, and perfectly fall. We pulled up to the gate of the cemetery. Bug looks slightly anxious. "We won't be in there when it gets dark?" he asks.

Arms loaded with blank sheets of paper, we trudge over the uneven ground, fallen acorns crunching under our feet. We walk uphill, to the oldest part of the graveyard.


I love graveyards. I love the old, crumbling moss covered stones and the miniature architecture of the headstones. I love the stories each grave tells, half of them made up in my own head.


This particular afternoon, I have brought my boys to the oldest cemetery in the city so that we can make charcoal rubbings of headstones. We wander through the markers, some tipped or sunken into the ground. We look for beautiful carvings, touching poems, and oldest dates.

There is so much history here, history that no one really knows any more.


We visit the Black Angel, rumored to be the most haunted site around. I don't mention this to the boys. They're actually enjoying our little outing to the cemetery, and I don't want to scare them.



When we find headstones we liked, very old stones or those carved with intricate designs, we unroll our paper, lay it over the stone and then rubbed the paper with charcoal. Well, Bug, my mom, and I do. Monkey just runs around, filling his pockets with acorns.


We spend a good portion of the afternoon, wandering further and further in the cemetery, which turned out to be much larger than I imagined. Finally, the last light was filtering through the pine boughs, and we make our way back to the car, our rubbings rolled carefully under our arms, our hands black smudged. We leave well before dark.

The rubbings are now hung by the front door, the perfect Halloween decorations.



I think this will be an annual tradition.

Golden Autumn Light

There is a light in autumn that is golden and warm, a light that makes my soul sing. Light that makes the poet and painter and photographer inside of me leap to the surface.



These golden days are filled to overflowing with hectic schedules. It feels that our days fly by faster than the Vs of geese overhead.


But the moments that the golden autumn light filters in through the now bare branches, in through the windows, it also filters into my soul, encouraging me to be still, breathe, and enjoy.

Death on the Table

I had my first patient die in the operating room.

The call came at near the end of a grueling day. There was an emergency case coming from the ICU. I rushed to set up the operating room. Minutes later, the patient arrived, already the color of barely hanging on. We ignored that, and just went to work.

It was all hands on deck. There were three surgeons, and three of us with anesthesia on the other side of the blue drapes. We worked quickly, giving fluids, hanging infusions, pushing boluses of medications. The patient's blood pressure would drop, down, down, down, far enough down that my own heart would skip a beat with fear that this time would be it. But no. We gave medications, we gave more fluid, and the blood pressure would come back up.

Within minutes after incision, the surgeons informed us that things didn't look good. They didn't think the patient's condition was a survivable one. The plan to was close the incision, take that patient back to the ICU, and talk to the family.

That's when it happened. The patient's heart rate went from fast but regular, and degenerated into a dangerous rhythm. We pulled the drapes down to start CPR. But there was no bringing the patient back this time. There was no fighting death, who had been standing at bedside for so long, there was no fighting him off any longer.

There are patients who are too sick for us to save. And I know that. I know that. I know that! But right at the moment this is happening, when the blood pressure is falling to undetectable, and the EKG tracing is a chaotic scribble instead of a pattern, at this moment, I don't believe it. I believe in this medicine. That this medicine is good, and it's strong, and it saves people. Every day, I watch it save people.

And I know that people die. That we can't save everyone. But they don't die on my watch, they don't die on my table.

Except, now, they do.

Whatever it is that I know, right now I don't believe any of it. What I do believe at this moment goes against everything I know.

There are no more beeps of the monitors. I've shut them all off. It's quiet in the OR, a quiet that doesn't sit well, a quiet that turns and pulls at my insides. I stand there for a while, too long, not sure how to leave when my patient is still on table. But there is nothing else for me to do except to leave.

And now I have to go back to being normal. I have to pull off my mask and scrub hat, change out of my scrubs, and go back to my life. Except there is no going back to normal. There is still the buzz in my head from silenced alarms and the weight in my stomach from the failure of what I believed.

Happy Anniversary of Your 25th Birthday

Every single year, when Hubster's birthday comes around, I start hearing a familiar refrain.

I'm so old. I just keep getting older. Why am I so old?

Obviously, Hubster is NOT old. Older, yes. But old? No. However, there is no way for me to convince him of this. Every since the day he turned 26, he has, in his mind, been old. 25 was his ideal age. Every year, he complains about his birthday. Since he is not turning 25, than he must be old. Every year, he attempts to convince me that we shouldn't do anything for his birthday. According to him, he just can't take any reminders that he just continues to get older.

This is coming from a man who watches Phineas and Ferb, eats cold pizza for breakfast and can do more pull-ups than anyone else I know. Yes, doesn't he just act so old?

I'm pretty good at compromise. Overall, I don't push Hubster to do things he doesn't want to do. But not celebrating? That isn't one of the things we are going to compromise on.

We will have cake.



We will have candles.


We will have presents.


I will find a babysitter and we will go out.

But it's all good. We aren't celebrating a birthday. We are celebrating the anniversary of him turning 25. Because that doesn't make him sound old at all.