So this is what blogging is all about!

I think it's time I joined the 21st century, don't you?





It's October, the air is cool and crisp, the leaves are starting to turn (I love fall foliage!) and as I drive to work every morning I see the signs along Straight Path -- big, pumpkin-colored signs, each bearing the words "u pick" and an arrow pointing to the pumpkin farm up on Colonial Springs Road. Can't say that I've ever actually been to that farm, but ...





Well, when I was a kid, we'd go to Meyer's. Each of us was allowed to go into the field and choose one pumpkin. We'd take them home and paint faces on the pumpkins, and then put them on the front porch to display. Eventually the squirrels would get hungry...and there'd be pumpkin seeds all over the porch.





when my kids were little, we'd go apple picking in the orchards out east every September, and the we'd stop at Tanger to do some back to school shopping. In October we'd go to several different pumpkin farms for the "agritainment". Meyer's would have a horse-drawn wagon, pony rides and a moon bounce. Molinoff's would have a wagon ride through the area where they housed farm animals, pumpkin painting and an area filled with straw where you could make a scarecrow. White Post also had live animals, bu we stopped going there when they started charging a fee to visit the barnyard. Alas, Meyer's is now a condo development and Molinoff's....well, it's been developed as well.





when my girls got older, they discovered Schmidt's. It's got a corn maze -- suitable for little kids by day, creepy at night -- and a haunted house. I've always been one of the car pool moms who drove the kids to the haunted house, but no more....Jen came home from college and decided to go to Schmidt's, so she and Becca hopped into the car and drove over there to meet up with friends. Sigh.





I haven't really started to see Halloween decorations yet. Mrs. L, who lives next door to us, has a cardboard jack o'lantern on her front door, but the elaborate displays some of my neighbors do...well, they haven't done them yet. Maybe everyone's waiting for this weekend. I'd really hate to think the economy killed Halloween this year.