The Death of a Giant Pumpkin

My life has been such a whirlwind. Returning from a month in Canada. Family in town. Starting school the next week. Getting sick. Crazy schedules. Seriously, last night we had the kids’ piano lessons, Hadley had Activity Days, Bode had Scouts, she had a volleyball game and a school disco dance that night while I had an event at the church.

How do families of more than two kids juggle it all?

I realized the other day that I neglected to give an update on Jamie’s pumpkin season. Sadly stated: it’s over.

On the day Bode got baptized in August, Jamie’s grower group did their annual patch tour where they caravan around the city looking at each other’s pumpkins. It’s a highly-anticipated event but this year brought some bad news Jamie had long suspected: his pumpkins “Bo” and “Lucille” had developed yellow vine disease. Though they both had a great start, they never really took off and then stopped growing altogether.

“Bo” in happier days. A gorgeous pumpkin!

Tissue tests came back stating that the plants had low nitrogen but then yellow leaves started popping up, which means doomsday for giant pumpkin growers.

So he pulled the plants and started soil prep for 2015.  There will be no pumpkin parties, though he is buoyed up by the fact that the kids’ pumpkins (which are grown in another area of the yard) remain unscathed.  We’ll call that Jamie’s silver lining.

Just don’t mention the color yellow.

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