Happy Accidents

Well we set off to find the perfect pumpkins this past weekend as it finally felt a little more like fall.  We headed off into Warren County to the place we stumbled upon last year for a return visit.  I can’t for the life of me even remember the name of the farm, but it was a great place with some animals, a big corn maze and a modest pumpkin patch.  They had cider and hayrides - but most of all a beautiful setting.  Unfortunately, as we arrived at the driveway we saw that the busy thriving farm we went to last year was closed up shut, not a soul to be seen.  At that point, with the dog in the car and two kids who were ready to get some pumpkins we had to go to plan B.  It was too late in the day to turn back towards Hunterdon County and hit one of the old reliable pumpkin patch hangouts we knew would be open, so hubby had a plan.  We will turn back and cross over the Delaware into Pennsylvania.  We could take that road back towards home and look for somewhere to get our pumpkins and if all else failed we could hit Traugers Farm as a last stop.  So it was a plan and off we went.

It’s a different world up in this neck of the woods, more like how Hunterdon County used to be when I was little.  Rural, farms and fields as far as the eye could see.  We decided the first sign we saw for a pumpkin patch we would follow, with all these farms there was bound to be one somewhere right?  We made a game of it and we travelled on for about 10 minutes or so as I silently was beginning to give up hope until we all simultaneously spotted it.  A small wooden sign on the corner of an intersection with a pumpkin and an arrow pointing the way.  So we turned and followed, down a winding creek-lined road.  It was an adventure, the kind of things that little kids remember and that memories are made of.  I had no idea what we would actually find, but as long as there was something that passed for pumpkins that was all that mattered at this point.

So we go on for what seemed like quite some time and in the midst of a cornfield lined road, we see the little sign that pointed down a dirt road.   And there was a small shed building that contained tons of pumpkins, gourds, indian corn and the like and next to it a small path that led to the field.  There was no one there but us and you paid for your pumpkins by the honor system (not by the pound).

Feeling quite happy to have stumbled upon this place, we headed with our puppy into the fields (something we couldn’t have done at any pumpkin patch closer to home) and had an amazing time.  The kids didn’t care that there was no hayride, mazes and the like.  It was family fun at its purest, just being together. 

It certainly will be our new pumpkin place to go to next year, and hopefully it will still be there.  But if not, we will take the road less travelled and see where it takes us, because sometimes life brings these little gifts when we least expect it.