JustMattHenry.com: gossip, life and humor

mikey, brett and i went to Belvedere Plantation this weekend so i (apparently only I) could search the patch for the Great Pumpkin.  here is our story in pictures and words:

here are mikey and brett at the start of our time at Belvedere Plantation, a redneck sanctuary complete with a cannon that shoots pumpkins, pig racing–oh yes, we’ll get to that–fire pits with which to warm your infants (yes, that was happening too–nothing like blackening your babies lungs  from a bonfire  now since they’re going to be inhaling at all that newport light smoke in your house).

as you can see it was a lovely day and we needed to plan the sights and activities we wanted to do before the first pig race at 4. to kill time we wandered over to the farm animal viewing area (i so wish it was a petting zoo). but instead we got this:

it’s a couple of ducks behind some rusted fencing. i thought it was very dramatic how the picture turned out. nearby, mikey became fixated on what he thought were chickens in a separate pen and then he ran over to me and provided this gem of a quote: “oh my god, did you hear that chicken?! it sounded like a rooster!” uh, er, that’s because it was a rooster.

that’s a baby cow. he wouldn’t come over to me to let me pet him. he’d wander over to all the kids with their crying and their sticky hands though. he was a bitch. a cute bitch. but a bitch.

this thing scared the living bedazzler out of me. i can’t tell if it’s a sheep, the devil or a combination of both. all i know is he had four horns coming out of his head and murder in his eyes:

so the pig races were about to begin and some kids wandered by with their parents complaining that they were going to miss the pig races since–i think–their parents had had enough of the place and wanted to go home and get their budweiser on. so they were whining and finally the dad said this and thereby winning quote of the day: “if you want to see a pig race, chase your mother around the living room.”

i kind of fell in love with that family right then because…well, if you throw in a “goddamn” anywhere in that sentence, it could have been my dad saying that. and she wasn’t like an obese person, it was a joke and she got it and they had a good laugh and they reminded me of Dan and Roseanne Conner.

what do you think, mikey?

this next picture is a picture of brett and her favorite animal. to eat. she’s actually pointing at his stubby little wagging tail and thinking, man, i can’t wait till they gut it, drain it, and roast it on a spic! i want a piece of that pig ass! no. actually brett loves pigs so much she refuses to eat them. that baby cow, on the other hand, better watch his back.

here is a picture of brett and i sitting in the stands. as you can see we are very excited for the pig races to start:

actually, i think brett is thinking about bacon.

a pig racing:

it was actually very entertaining and very cute. mikey now wants a pig. i think i could shave delia and paint her a fleshy pink for a couple of days to tide him over. there were four heats and i think our pig won once. in the picture above, our pig has the yellow marker on his back. he came in second that race.

after all the excitement of racing piglets, we ran back up to the farmers market for cookies and hot apple cider which sounds so cliche and we seriously could have used some rum to go with it. then it was off to a different kind of race: the peddle tractor track! here’s mikey peddling away saying “this is actually hard”:

now, the track wasn’t that wide and there were clear rules that bumping was not allowed. i followed mikey followed by brett and let me just say that the psycho kid after brett was a maniac. or drunk. or high. whatever. no ten year who blatantly disregards the rules of the ride should be allowed in the park. next year, when i return, if i see him there, i’m going to back hand him. and i memorized his face so i will know him when i see him.

the corn maize–ha ha– was fun but scary because the stalks were whispering in the breeze and it was very large and i’m sure there were animals and stuff scurrying about and watching us. brett got an emergency call from work and replied with the runner-up quote of the day: “uh, i’m actually in a corn maze right now.” twenty minutes later, she would receive another emergency work call to which she replied, “i’m actually on a hayride now”.

NO NO! Don’t go THAT way!

i think at this point we may have been a bit lost and a bit spooked so we decided to play Top Model.

more corn. i still don’t know if we knew where we were.

so after we made it through the corn maize, we decided it was time to go take the hayride over to the pumpkin patch since it was getting late and i knew that once in the patch, i would take at least three hours to find the perfect pumpkin. you see, i have to find the right shape and it has to have a stem and if i find two of one shape then i like to contrast that with a different shape. like this:

and while i liked this combination, i certainly couldn’t commit to it as we’d only been searching the patch at this point for about an hour and a half and i had at least three more acres to comb over. much to the dismay of brett and mikey who kept removing pumpkins from my “possiblity piles”–which are piles of pumpkins marked with MY hat so everyone else knows not to touch them. but i can’t just pick any old pumpkin. i’m sorry, i just can’t. and so i wasn’t thrilled with this little pile and took the smaller one with me as i continued my search.

i wish i had a picture of brett tripping over the pumpkin vine. she did that a lot. i’d have like 8 pictures. one for each trip. now, if i had a picture for everytime she complained about tripping over a pumpkin vine, i would have like 9000 pictures. at least she didn’t wear stilleto heels like some one else i know who came with me once, years ago. honestly, who wears heels to a pumpkin patch?

so these are the three i ended up with. i think, while all similar in shape and color, i like that there’s a dad, a mom, and a baby and they all have a nice plump pumpkin-y shape. mikey and brett each picked a pumpkin the size of an apple to take home and they could have just picked one of those up at a 711 on the way home. but whatever. here’s mikey showing some real skill with his tiny pumpkin:

we loaded the pumpkins in the car then headed back to the farmers market for fresh apple butter, strawberry rhubarb jam and bretts great big ol’ bag of kettle corn to take home with us. and we bid a fond farewell to belvedere…till next year:

she finished that bag in like twenty minutes.

so then, and this was when our trip got a little spooky…we had to stop and get gas at this little old gas station on route 17 and it’s dark and chilly and it feels like Halloween. so i fill up the car, and run in for a candy bar in the little shop and the little old man behind the counter says “DC, huh?” and i say “yessir, we just came down to go to belvedere plantation for their Halloween festival.” and he goes, “BELVEDEAH PLANTATION! what you talkin’ ’bout BELVEDEAH PLANTATION?! why, belvedeah plantation burned down some fifty yeeahs ago this very night!”

ok, so that didn’t happen, but i kind of wish it did.