Life with the Carbon People or Hawk blows his entire paycheck on pumpkins

What a perfect weekend. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, with cool evenings. It was the kind of weather that actually lures you away from the computer, out of the house and West Nile Virus be damned!

The thing about living in America�s Heartland is most of the time the weather is way too hot/humid or it is way to cold. 100 degree temperature ranges are not uncommon. You can count up the really nice weekends we get every year on one hand.

�What�s that bright thing up in the sky that makes me squint?� I ask Hawk.

�That�s the sun, you houseplant. Put on you sunglasses� he replies. He has our day planned. We�re going to the country to get pick up pumpkins, cornstalks and a bale of hay for our front porch, Halloween decorating needs.

�Won�t there be a lot of pollen and ragweed in the country?� I whine

�Take your Clarinex and stop whining� Ol Doc Hawk commands. His bedside manner is better with his patients, I swear. He bribes me with a stop at Starbucks on the way out of town if I promise to �be good�.

Hawk decides that Maria is the better traveling companion and directs his attention to her. Damn but they are cute together. Sometimes I think it�s a cruel joke that Hawk�s not a straight guy and can�t have a houseful of his own children. They are discussing getting enough pumpkins to cascade down the front steps.

Suburbs give way to real Kansas countryside. It�s pretty out here and if you listen, you can even hear Meadowlarks singing. The pumpkin patch is only 20 miles west of town, and just between us, it�s a Disney version of the Kansas family farm. I mean, how many working farms have a giant pumpkin walk up to your car and greet you with a cookie and cider when you arrive? This is family fun and we�re a family, by God. I don�t care what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson say.

This place is cute. The barn is cute, the farmer and his wife are cute, even the pig and the chickens are cute. Maria is invited into the barn to see Mama cat and her new kittens.

�This is going to be trouble� I tell Hawk. He can never say No to the child. He rarely tells me NO either, one of the reasons I love him. Fortunately, the Farmer has explained that the kittens are too young to leave their mother and then distracts Miss M by the promise of pumpkins.

We climb aboard the back of a flat-bed truck and the Farmer will take you out to the pumpkin fields. Pumpkins as far as the eye can see, and it�s early in the season, so the field is not picked over.

I jump off the back of the truck and step ankle deep into mud. It rained the night before, the Farmer reminds us. I never step into mud on-line. Hawk gives me one of those �don�t go there� looks.

Missy falls in love with every pumpkin in the field and after much editing, we select only the brightest and roundest of the crop with artfully curved stems. Our pumpkins are weighed back at the barn. We�ve spent $30 freakin� dollars on pumpkins!

The Farmer, shrewd businessman that he is, offers Missy the chance to make her own scarecrow. Only $15. We HAVE Crows, Missy urges. We need a scarecrow! There�s a mound of old clothes available and we end up in a pile of hay, stuffing straw into old bluejeans and flannel shirts. There�s not enough Clarinex in the world to get me through this, I am thinking.

We have a snack, we buy some chrysanthemums. We buy some apples and a pie and a jug of cider. We buy two bales of hay and some cornstalks to put around the mailbox. As we pile back into the car, the Farmer urges us to come back next weekend for �The Pumpkin Festival�. His kid�s college tuition is probably due.

And that was only part of my adventure amid the carbon people

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