MidiMike

I make music and take pictures, but my wife is the creative half of the team.  She does it all.  I have threatened to list her abilities here before but none of us have that much time!  She loves to carve pumpkins during the Halloween season and would other times if pumpkins were around.  We would have the kids and grand kids come over and carve pumpkins in the back yard.  It was so much fun and the kids really loved it too.  She made the mistake of telling a few friends and the next year they invited themselves.  We all had a blast.  I am not great in the carving department so I would gut them for the little kids, make sure music was playing and everyone had a hot drink and a perfect pumpkin to work on.  It was a great family event and each year we looked forward to pumpkin carving time.

It seemed like a harmless mistake.  Friends told other friends.  Each year we had more and more people coming over.  We provided the pumpkins and you could take yours home after showing them off to everyone.  The carving tools got more elaborate.  The patterns and artwork more challenging and the carved pumpkins were AWESOME.  I served more hot drinks, gutted more pumpkins than I could count.

Soon we had more events; we had a screaming contest to see who had the most blood-curdling ear-piercing screams (the little kids were unbeatable!).  We had walnut trees and as a result a walnut throwing contest.  Haunted trails through the woods.

Then came the hay rides!  Not to be outdone, we had a haunted house the next year using lights, fog machines and other equipment from the bands I played in.  People started bringing soup and chili to share so we had contests for the best dish.  We started buying pumpkins by the skid!   It now took almost a month to plan the events and get masks, haunted house, hay rides and everything else ready for the big day.

My wife and I were so busy entertaining that she could no longer take the time to carve pumpkins!  This is why the whole thing started and now she could not carve any of her own.  WE were exhausted by the end of the day and even though we had a great time and everyone loved the event, we looked around and decided not to do it next year.  Or the year after.

Fortunately, friends of ours started their own carving events and we went over to theirs to carve pumpkins for a few years until they moved out of state!

With that in mind, here are just a few of the pictures.  Maybe one day close to Halloween I will post the winners of the screaming contest!

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