Trending
If one lives long enough, there comes a time when the children, as lovingly as possible, take the car keys away. Thankfully I'm not there yet with the driving thing, not quite, but I am being told by my wife and children that the time has come to scale back Worshrag's Pumpkin Patch.
"You promised again that you would cut back and you didn't," Honey scolded.
"I know, I know, but last year was so bad, with the drought and the deer eating all the pumpkins. I really wanted this to be a good year for the grandsons," I said.
All that is true. After last year's disappointment, I added a field, planted more, put in more electric fence, and worked myself and the boys harder, so we would have a good season in the pumpkin patch.
"I do all the work, they get all the money," is my motto for Worshrag's Pumpkin Patch, but the grandsons do in fact work hard and willingly, and the money most years has been good. How many kids can say they paid income tax and had a Roth IRA by the time they were 10?
On the other hand, the last three grandsons are teenagers now. Lamppost Head, The 747 and The Favorite are almost as busy in summer as they are during the school year. Busy, too, are their parents, and because they help out especially with the selling, the pumpkin patch cuts into things they want and need to do on fall weekends. And sad to say, they have reached middle age, and don't always have the nap-fueled stamina that we retired folks have.
The pumpkin patch began in 1997, when our youngest son Worshrag was 8. I had grown a surplus of pumpkins in my vegetable garden, and told the boy if he would sit and sell them from our old barn, I would put a sign out by the main road and he could keep all the money he made.
He bought his first car with pumpkin money, and was awarded a $2,000 scholarship from a downstate pumpkin festival. A state champion wrestler and weightlifting champ, he now works as a strength and conditioning trainer for elite U.S. military units. His personal mythology story is that it all began with lifting heavy pumpkins.
Honey helped me keep the pumpkin patch going after Worsh went away to college, but we finally let it lapse for a couple of years with him away. The promise of earning real money, however, enticed son Seed's two older boys when they got big enough to work, so we revived it. As those two aged out, the last three grandsons stepped in. Now it seems that their time for the pumpkin patch is winding down.
Money for the boys is only one of the benefits it brings to us. This farm has passed down mostly intact, thanks to family love and sacrifice. We are fortunate to live here, and love to share it with people. Mention "Miller farm" and we may get blank stares, but say "pumpkin patch" and people light up. There is a happy enchantment to it that makes friends and lends priceless goodwill.
On free tractor rides I show that the bumps on goldenrod stems are made by a gall-fly worm, let kids shake dry milkweed pods in the air to release seeds on their silky parachutes, and tell how the seed heads of broomcorn - which we grow for cornstalks – are what traditional corn brooms are made from.
I tell how Great-great-great Grandfather David Miller, a Scots-Irish immigrant, had his 400-acre farm here in Gas Valley after the Revolutionary War. Great-Grandfather Morgan Miller, after Civil War service, lease-shared this farm with Uncle Henry Pittenger, raising his family in a log cabin in the pasture. Hugh Pugh had the house (1840) and barn (1849) built by a very skilled man named William Leathem. His pay for the barn was $150.
All the beautiful pumpkins we sell are piled up in that old barn, where people can see how the beams and posts are joined by wooden pegs. History becomes real when you can touch it.
The pumpkin patch is not all work. "Look at this beauty, Grandpa!" The Favorite will call out as we go through a field, harvesting varieties with names like Snowball, Jarrahdale, Blue Moon, Mellow Yellow, Long Island Cheese, Tennessee Sweet Potato and Porcelain Doll. The grandsons make a game out of work at every opportunity, tossing pumpkins rapid-fire to the one in the trailer. Working with them on this and other projects is among the joys of my life.
Worshrag's Pumpkin Patch will open in all its glory this coming weekend, noon to five. I'm not saying this season will be the last, but I have promised to cut by about half next year, and will ask less of family help. As for my car keys, though, hands off.