All good things...

Sometimes, things are over. This is one of those times.

The vines leading into our great pumpkin had withered away, so it was time to harvest the beast. I sent out an email announcing a celebration in the pumpkin patch to my friends at the Danforth Center, and there we gathered last Friday after work:



We chatted, ate some chips, and sampled 5 different varieties of pumpkin-flavored beer, including the local O'Fallon Pumpkin Beer, Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale, Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale, Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale, and Sea Dog Pumpkin Ale. They pretty much all tasted like somebody dropped a slice of pumpkin pie into the vat at some point during the brewing process. They ranged in quality from pretty awful to pretty good. My favorite that I tried was the Buffalo Bill's, but it's still definitely not something I could drink very often. I'm not going to say much else, because the links above have way more information than anybody could ever actually need about pumpkin beer.

There was also a high-stakes wager going about the weight of the pumpkin - people payed a whole dollar to guess, and it was winner-take-all the dollars. More on that later.

When we were getting ready to move the pumpkin, I discovered some nasty scars on its underside:



I was worried that the whole underside would be rotten, but when we rolled it over, it turned out that there were just a few, although pretty nasty, holes in the pumpkin. It looked like maybe some nasty little critters had chewed their way inside, because I also saw what looked like some yellow insect frass.



Anyway, when everyone was starting to get excited about weighing the pumpkin, I pulled out my weighing equipment, which basically amounted to 2 bathroom scales - the plan was to lay the palette with the pumpkin across the 2 scales, then add the weights that the 2 scales showed. Kudos to Christian for coming up with the idea. We slid some 2 x 4's through the palette to act as handles, then Pete, Chuck, Ted, and I carried it down the hill like real men, while Brian took some nice pictures:



A crowd of adoring pumpkin fans trailed closely behind:



First, we weighed the palette + the pumpkin:


Scale 1: 128.75 pounds Scale 2: 132.50 pounds

Scale 1 + Scale 2 = 261.25 pounds

A gasp went out from the crowd:



Then we took the pumpkin off, and weighed just the palette:


Scale 1: 39 pounds Scale 2: 36 pounds

Scale 1 + Scale 2: 75 pounds

So: Palette + Pumpkin - Palette = 261.25 pounds - 75 pounds =

186.25 pounds!



Ted wins 11 dollars!

So, it's no world record, but it's a darn good first attempt, and I made my goal - the pumpkin weighs more than I do, by 7.25 pounds. In fact, the pumpkin weighs as much as me, wearing boxer briefs and a t-shirt, and holding 1 18.6 oz can of Campbell's Chunky Chicken Noodle soup, 1 14.5 oz can of Wolfgang Puck's Signature Recipe Chicken Tortilla Soup, 1 11 oz box of Mrs. Allison's Golden Vanilla Wafers, 1 6-pack of Mott's Healthy Harvest No Sugar Added Granny Smith Apple Sauce, 1 40 oz jar of Schnucks Crunchy Peanut Butter, and Monster's blue stuffed monkey.

However, folks, this is not the end, nor the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning. Halloween is still 7 weeks from tonight, so there's work to be done to preserve the pumpkin, carve the pumpkin, display the pumpkin, and of course, destroy the pumpkin.

Stay tuned.

XOXO,
Bert