My son and I began a tradition last year involving farms and pumpkins and apples. Actually, I thought it was a one-time event, but my son took this to be a tradition from the get-go, and reminded me constantly the second he found out it was October again. {We sometimes keep the date a secret around here.}
About thirty minutes from our house, there is a little organic family farm. This is not to be confused with an actual apple farm, which specialize in apples. This farm has a little something to be picked year-round. Blackberries, blueberries, rasberries, apricots, plums, pluots, strawberries, varieties of pears and apples, avacados, and pumpkins are just a sampling of what is grown at this farm.
What is great about this farm is that it is just commercialized enough for my little guy. In other words, he gets to take a tractor ride. And that is the true reason why we go, at least in his mind. Last year’s tractor ride was better than this year’s, but we still got the full tour of the property, plus a chance to jump off the trailer and pick our very own pumpkins.
There is also a small petting zoo, as well as a peacock pen. E. was amazed at how blue the peacocks were.
Anyhow, we always end our excursion with a trip to the fruit stand. The great thing about this farm as that they do not harvest until the fruit is truly ripe. This is actually very important when one is considering the nutritional content of one’s food, and one of the reasons our eventual goal is to have our own fruit trees. Glycological science is still new, but a lot of research into glyconutrients tells us that certain sugars heal. There are a number of different glyconutrients in fruit, but the most important do not enter the fruit until the ripening process is complete. There are companies out there that would like to sell a person these nutrients as a very expensive supplement. It seems much easier to simply put off harvesting until the time the Lord designed.
All of that to say that we go to the fruit stand and purchase inexpensive, ripe organic fruit. This year we concentrated on a large sweet pumpkin and a bag of apples to make applesauce.
Just because we avoid Halloween doesn’t mean that we have no use for pumpkins. Tomorrow, I will explain why one should skip the carving and the decorating and simply eat the pumpkin as God intended.
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