It’s the second year running.  Last year it was thirty.  This year it’s (almost) sixty.  Six.  Zero.  There will be sixty jack o’ lanterns on my front lawn this Hallow’s Eve.  How has this come about?  Glad you asked, as have many other people.

A few years ago I got some not-quite-random email from the good folks at my Kodak photo site.  It was just one of those festive things detailing photo ideas for the coming season, but the lead photo in the email was composed of about six jack o’ lanterns gleaming, grinning, and snarling in the darkness.  I don’t remember anything else about the message, but the image stuck in my head.  “That’s pretty sweet, man.  I want to do something like that.”

A year or so passed.  I think that year I did do four pumpkins, just because I thought it would be fun.  The next year I slacked off and did only two.  It was fun, but I really liked having more.  A lot more.

The next year rolled around, and I started talking about this idea.  “I should have a bunch of pumpkins, a bunch of jack o’ lanterns this year,” I told a friend.
“That’s cool.  You mean, like, five or six?”
“No, like…twenty.”
“Twenty?!  How are you going to carve all those!”
“I don’t know, but it would be cool, right?”
“Yeah, it would be really cool.”

Having thusly convinced myself of the coolness of my idea, I formed a plan: get lots of pumpkins.  It was a loose plan, I’ll give you that, but it was a plan just the same.  Eventually I fleshed it out some more, found a place that would give me a deal on thirty (somehow the number went higher – go figure), and had a bunch of people come over and carve, and carve, and carve.  It was a big success, and before I’d even lit candle one I had people encouraging me to do it again next year with even more.  After looking at the resulting photos, I couldn’t argue.  Thirty was superfab, but by taking two photos and placing one above the other, it was easy to see that sixty, or even ninety(!) would be better.

Having the wrath of gourd instilled in me from the previous year’s efforts, I decided that I’d “take it slow” this year and only double the amount.  (This is taking it slow?  Honestly?  Um, okay.)  So it was that I arranged, with the wonderful cooperation of my loving and helpful parents, to have them pick up sixty orange victims from the patch nearby their home.

They purchased them on Friday the 16th, and mom brought them down the next day in dad’s pickup.  Behold the orangey goodness:

Mom gives ’em a good scrub as we unload them.

Here they are all unloaded on my front porch, patiently awaiting their fate.  Holy crap that’s a lot of pumpkins!  Can I really pull this off??  (Yep, there are actually 61.  They threw in an extra in case one was bad in the batch.)

On Saturday folks began arriving sometime around 1pm.  My folks went straight to work (well, my mom actually made mulled cider and dusted things and cleaned up first.  She was great!)

Here is some of my faithful crew from last year, back at it just as enthusiastically this year.

Time was taken out from the busy schedule to make sure my nephew received some tickling by grandpa.

At the end of the day on Sunday, despite the efforts of my wonderful friends, I still had 26 pumpkins left!  I did four of them myself Monday, then rallied on Tuesday morning and sent out the emails: Please come for carving tonight!  It worked.  I have such great friends!  Andrew even returned from his stint on Saturday for a rematch with the gourds.
 

Goo, carving, markers, cutters, Coke.  I did supply bubbly caffeine.  Surprisingly, most people seemed to run on pure creative energy.

All Hallow’s Eve eve, and look what we have…three in the left front corner not carved even after the flurry of activity Tuesday night!  Where’s my marker!  My cutter, posthaste!

10/30/08 11:00pm  Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a go.  Sixty (okay, sixty-one) pumpkins carved!

Tonight is gonna be sweet!