Circleville pumpkin mania

Maybe it's because Circleville used to be called Round Town that the people of this village are obsessed with pumpkins, which are not exactly round, but come pretty darn close.  The annual pumpkin show has been in existence since the early 1900's, with a long history of thousand-pound pumpkins, parades and Pumpkin Queens.  We went this year for the first time - a drive through beautiful countryside which we could just make out through the wipers as we drove through a blinding rain - and I was so cranky that I'm not going to say anything more about it, in the small chance that you have always dreamed of making a pilgrimage to this event. I wouldn't want to spoil it for you...Ok, well, let me just say that it was partly hormonal (a carnival is not the best place to be herding children when you are feeling irritable already) and partly disappointment with the sheer quantity of crap being hawked, pushed, paraded, deep fried and powdered with sugar. More pumpkins, I say! More pumpkins! But anyway...

Magic: finding poems in the bathroom.  (Hmm... My daughter seems to have the same urge I have to leave favorite poems in public bathrooms. Imagine my delight when I wandered in, on a break from making puppets, to have this scribbled message left for me to ponder while I took care of business.)

We had a wonder-filled week last week with so much everyday magic.  On Friday I found myself sitting in the second row of Stuart's Opera House, at the end of a line of six children, watching the daredevil antics of Cirque Mechanics.  The spanish web, the trampoline, the incredible contortionist elicited gasps, wild laughter and incredulous shouts from the kids next to me.  Osha, to my left, literally jumped out of his seat several times, and at one moment turned to me and yelled, "I know how he is still standing!! It's centripetal force! That's how he's doing it! Centripetal force!"  Yowza, it was awesome watching them take it all in.  I was so thankful for the 60 tickets made available to homeschoolers for the daytime "school" show!

And then there was the parade, and a gorgeous fall celebration...

Turtle Hill Farm

Oh, you know Michelle and her pickled heads

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...and the rainy trick-or-treating...

my husband, the pharoah

Us!

Which brings us to November. Sniffles, new knitting projects, apple cider, pumpkin soup...sounds about right.

...and then the parade! (more Honey for the Heart!)

my family!

Feeling full of THANKS for this community of people who want to spend their October this way, for my husband who carried the heaviest puppet in the parade there and back again, for the artists who thought this would be a good balance to the crazy block party that comes later in the night and carved out this space for creativity and joy.