{"id":968,"date":"2008-10-16T21:41:53","date_gmt":"2008-10-17T01:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=968"},"modified":"2008-10-19T12:20:46","modified_gmt":"2008-10-19T16:20:46","slug":"in-search-of-the-great-pumpkin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=968","title":{"rendered":"In Search of the Great Pumpkin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pumpkin Patch in Marstons Mills, Cape Cod<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Halloween!\u00c2\u00a0 The sweetest, most\u00c2\u00a0inventive\u00c2\u00a0American\u00c2\u00a0holiday\u00c2\u00a0arrives in a mere two weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 Halloween was once dominated by\u00c2\u00a0roving gangs of ghosts and goblins squealing the churlish threat of “Trick or Treat,” a\u00c2\u00a0menacing phrase eeriely reminiscent of the old British highwaymen’s “Stand and Deliver” or the 20th century\u00c2\u00a0mugger’s “Your Money or Your Life.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But America’s greatest cartoon genius, Charles Schultz, rescued Halloween from ghouls and gangsters, sprinkled it with child-like\u00c2\u00a0purity and gave us back our innocence.\u00c2\u00a0 So, each October we search the far\u00c2\u00a0landscape for the most perfect pumpkin patch where the Great Pumpkin will appear to the purest of heart.<\/p>\n

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“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” by Charles Schultz<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A snipe hunt?\u00c2\u00a0 No way.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if\u00c2\u00a0we suspected that Charles Schultz had tried to pull one over on us, Linus would never try to deceive.\u00c2\u00a0 And even a snipe hunt offers opportunities for fresh air and the beautiful Cape Cod countryside.<\/p>\n

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Searching for the Great Pumpkin at Cob Webb Farm in Marstons Mill<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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On Wednesday we drove out into the woodlands of Marstons Mills on the Upper Cape and spotted the Cob Webb Farm pumpkin patch.\u00c2\u00a0 We were the only patrons with acres and acres of pumpkins to survey, selecting a perfect 25-pound orange globe as the Halloween welcome sign for our front porch.<\/p>\n

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Squirrel Finds the Great Orange “Acorn”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Not all pumpkins are for carving, but they are revered nevertheless.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0A neighborhood squirrel stumbled across\u00c2\u00a0the decorative pumpkin we placed on our front banister to invite youngsters for a sweet Halloween feast.\u00c2\u00a0 Even\u00c2\u00a0this bushy tailed rodent morphed into a cuddly Schultz-like creation, transformed by a Halloween pumpkin into cartoon purity\u00c2\u00a0with eyes swelling, arms trembling and heartbeat racing so fast that its chest\u00c2\u00a0vibrated like a base drum.<\/p>\n

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Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, you may have thought you’d get through an entire post without that pesky science stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 No such luck.\u00c2\u00a0 While we were walking through the Cob Webb Farm patch and inspecting orange orbs, we found a slew of spotted cucumber beetles (Diabrotica undecimpunctata<\/em>) feasting on stems and crawling around pumpkins.\u00c2\u00a0 Their dorsal\u00c2\u00a0color blends perfectly with the surface of the pumpkin, turning them invisible to the untrained eyed.\u00c2\u00a0 We also found a few striped cucumber beetles (Acalymma vittatum<\/em>)\u00c2\u00a0that had embedded themselves into the surface of the pumpkin.\u00c2\u00a0 Both spotted and stiped cucumber beetles cause significant damage to cucurbit crops, including plants like cucumbers, squashes, pumpkin gourds and melons.<\/p>\n

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Cucumber Beetle “Break Dancing”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To balance the science we’ll\u00c2\u00a0close this post with a photographic melange of\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0very talented\u00c2\u00a0cucumber beetle that appeared engaged in a complex, acrobatic break dancing routine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pumpkin Patch in Marstons Mills, Cape Cod Halloween!\u00c2\u00a0 The sweetest, most\u00c2\u00a0inventive\u00c2\u00a0American\u00c2\u00a0holiday\u00c2\u00a0arrives in a mere two weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 Halloween was once dominated by\u00c2\u00a0roving gangs of ghosts and goblins squealing the churlish threat of “Trick or Treat,” a\u00c2\u00a0menacing phrase eeriely reminiscent of the old British highwaymen’s “Stand and Deliver” or the 20th century\u00c2\u00a0mugger’s “Your Money or Your Life.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[825],"tags":[678,673,664,660,683,95,670,665,667,671,679,675,661,659,669,658,682,475,681,657,666,676,656,668,674,680,672,663,677,662],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1011,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}