This post was recovered from an old blog that I had while in college. I’ve only updated misspellings or dead links, but left any cringe worthy things or immature thoughts. I’ve decided to leave them as a snapshot of who I was and to see how far I’ve come. Any photos have been freshly edited and so are not the same as what was originally posted. Over the years I had several blogs, most lost to time, and I wanted to recover some lost memories and reflect on my life.

his is a little late as Halloween has passed, but what the heck. Last week on my daily drive from Corvallis to Salem I decided to take my girlfriend to a pumpkin patch. It’s been a while since my last visit to the large field of bright orange orbs and since my return to America I’ve wanted to do some fun local things. I saw a sign for Setniker Farms pumpkin patch and turned off the main road. The late fall light was beginning to fade so I quickly drove down a long dirt road until we came upon the farm. To our surprise the parking lot was packed.

The first thing we did was go climb the big haystack pyramid. From the top we could survey our surroundings and the whole pumpkin patch. The first of cold winds was blowing and making our noses runny. We hopped down and headed to get a pull cart. We walked out into the patch going farther and farther, looking for the perfect pumpkins. I was looking for a nice round medium size pumpkin while my girlfriend fancied a “unique” one. We constantly stopped and picked up pumpkins, turning them to see all sides, checking for rot.

It wasn’t until our way back from the far side of the patch that we finally found the perfect pumpkins. We set them side by side, making sure they complemented each other. We both agreed they looked good together, put them in our cart and went to pay. After the pumpkins had been weighed the total came to a whopping $3.50! I know for sure that Safeway would have sold the same pumpkins for $5+ each. Happy about the bargain we’d come across we drove home and started brainstorming idea’s for carving. I decided to carve an OSU pumpkin, which didn’t come out very good, and my girlfriend carved a face which worked really good with her unique pumpkin. The escapade was not yet over!

With all those leftover guts and seeds we had to do something. The guts ended up in the compost, but the seeds ended up in the oven. We had enough for three batches of seeds so we spiced each one differently. There’s nothing I love more than being efficient and using all the resources that I have. Well maybe cheap/free food.