Outfit: The Pumpkin Patch

Hello October! We spent the first day of October tromping through a farmer friend's pumpkin patch.
Last year the weather was so bad a lot of farmers' crops suffered, including the pumpkin crop. The only pumpkin patch we heard about last year only had green pumpkins! This year though our weather has been much better through spring and summer and it shows in how lush the harvest is. The apples in Thomas's family orchard are enormous and abundant, and the pumpkins--although less of a local specialty--also did remarkably well. This patch of course isn't like the pick-your-own-pumpkin patches I'm used to in America. There's no hayride out to the patch or hot apple cider donuts sold nearby and pumpkins lying neatly in dusty lanes already cut from their stems waiting for you to choose a favorite. Instead it's a bit more of an adventure as the farmer invites you to find it on your own--go down the road a bit and look for a hole in the hedge, walk through the rows of eucaylptus and past the orchard and there you should see the sprawling patch vines and pumpkins on your right, no your left. It is halfway into this journey you wonder if you should have opted for more sensible boots instead of the pretty oxford heels which complemented your outfit so well. I often find myself  questioning my shoe choice, but all is forgotten when you do find the patch and there are hundreds of bright orange pumpkins greeting in the evening sunshine. It's really fun to finally pick pumpkins in Ireland since jack-o-lanterns originated from this spooky island. But back in the day there were no pumpkins (those come from North America) so the original jack-o-lanterns were turnips carved on All Hallow's Eve and filled with an ember to ward of evil spirits. Thomas's family can still remember carving turnips; although every year pumpkins become more and more popular over here since you are far less likely to lose a finger carving a large orange squash than a small, hard root!