Yeah, I know.  You’re thinking, “where is he going with this tale?” and “I’ll give him ten seconds to pique my interest before I take my mad interweb skills elsewhere, yo.”  Pumpkin in a tree, and we have the world’s first.  BAM….drops the mic and walks off stage.  Anyway, now that you’re privy to this miracle, I’ll continue to write on this fine Halloween morn until the sun rises and gives me an opportunity to obtain photographic proof of this wild claim, while I simultaneously devise a way to charge admission for viewing this suspended demonstration of nature’s splendor.

Last weekend, our landlord had three hired hands (3 men….so 6 hands literal) and a small, tired looking tractor to plow under and clean up the weeds growing among the trees in our semi-private orchard.  Sadly, along with the weeds, went the large pumpkin patch and almost every ground-clinging, wall (and tree) climbing vine with it.  We were dismayed to see the pumpkin patch go, because one of the vines had sought greener pastures, by climbing a 4 foot rock wall, slithering between wrought iron to settle and produce a tiny pumpkin in a little used area of our driveway.  This too was gone.  “Tito, hand me a tissue.”

As we stood gazing through the fence, we surveyed the trees for ripe fruit when something caught my wife’s eye.  There, camouflaged and nestled among the leaves of an orange tree, yet suspended 5 feet off of the ground was not only one, but two pumpkins, each the size of a soccer ball.  To steal a line from Jurassic Park, “Nature finds a way.”  Happy Halloween everyone!