Tag: pumpkin-patch

Journal entry – 15-19 October 2015, Thurs-Mon – Gilbert, AZ – Running the pumpkin lot

Journal entries are just that – the digital copy of my hand-written entries in my journal. If you aren’t interested in the daily details of our adventure, feel free to skip on to the next “regular” post.

People trickle in throughout the days and we sell pumpkins in groups of 1-5 or so. A dust storm on Thursday has us buttoning down hatches. We have to undecorate the awning 🙁 to close it. With the wind we re-set up our decorations at least 6 times over a couple of hours.

  

Thursday evening I catch Andy, the maintenance man, over at the church. He remembers a hookup last year and shows me the spigot. I get hoses stretched out and refill our tank before hooking up. Horray, water!

Friday, Mike and Mel arrive with old carpets from apartments. We put two under our awning to help with dust. They approve my PVC layout and suggest getting an additional drinking water hose.

It rains Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The carpet may never be dry. The hose I pick up is too short, so I have to redesign the PVC and then old connections crack. It takes 3 days and half a dozen trips to Lowes/Home Depot for me to finally get water run. We eventually have water hooked up to the RV and throughout our lot. There are three hose connections that we can use to spray off the trees when we switch seasons.

  

Sales seem fairly steady. Apparently it’s a mad rush at the end, so on the 30-31st we will actually go through our stock. Another load to fill out our stash is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.

One woman picks up a pumpkin and comes back the next day with it hollowed out for a photo shoot with her baby. He fits inside perfectly.

   
    

Another woman picked up a large pumpkin and some tiny ones to use for a pregnancy announcement. She plans to cut open the big one and carve a heart in it then out the small one inside it. Fun!

We have three generators of different sizes. The largest has an electric start, but the battery is dead and won’t take a charge. I have to run a generator and hook up my battery charger in order to start it.

  

I run all the errands – between my bike rack and the motorcycle I can carry things more easily than Ashley could in a backpack. She’s ready to get out and about with a purpose, not just aimlessly wandering on her bicycle.

We do a quick fitness test and are sore for 2 days.

With pumpkins to throw away daily – unsellable due to bad spots, we carve jack-o-lanterns, roast seeds and plan on trying lots of different recipes. Pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin pancakes, soup, blackbean and pumpkin chili, etc. Plenty of raw material, it seems a shame not to experiment when we so readily have the chance!

Journal entry – 11-14 October 2015, Sat-Wed – Gilbert, AZ – Prepping the pumpkin lot

Journal entries are just that – the digital copy of my hand-written entries in my journal. If you aren’t interested in the daily details of our adventure, feel free to skip on to the next “regular” post.

Over the next few days we inventory our supplies, receive accessories to sell (pattern books, carving kits, and candles) decorate some (banners, flags, lights on the RV) and wait. 30 straw bales are dropped off, the fence is installed, a porta-john and dumpster are delivered, and lights are installed on the tent.

We take the opportunity to get out and explore the surrounding areas. Lots of little “patches” of stores – old towns that are now all one urban sprawl. There is a Latter Day Saints (Mormon) church every half-mile or so around us. We find a million grocery stores (including Sprouts and Trader Joe’s), a few coffee shops (not as many as we expected – which should save us some money) the food truck court, and the usual suspects – mall, Target, WalMart, etc.

I start calling the church next door about hooking up for water. The spigot is easy enough to find but we can’t seem to catch anyone there. We run out of water in our fresh tank, so I take our water jug on the motorcycle and buy water from a Glacier water vending machine.

  
On Wednesday our pumpkins arrive, along with a crew to help unload them. After a few hours our straw is arranged and we have piles of pumpkins scattered throughout the tent. Everyone heads on to the next patch while Ashley and I finish arranging and decorating. We set up two photo areas, a “graveyard” and generally have a blast. In our completely unbiased opinion, everything looks amazing!

  
One pumpkin is sold that evening. How exciting!

   
 

Journal entry – 10 October 2015, Sat – Phoenix, AZ – Lot manager’s meeting

Journal entries are just that – the digital copy of my hand-written entries in my journal. If you aren’t interested in the daily details of our adventure, feel free to skip on to the next “regular” post.

We head in to the managers meeting at the hotel next door. 7 couples are there, the other 3 are still on the road. One other couple is our age while everyone else is middle-aged or elderly. We learn about inventory and paperwork, receive cash registers, credit card terminals, starting cash (gas for generators and change for the register) and a padlock key.

The meeting is wrapped up by our lunch appointment at MiMi’s Cafe. We ride over with Mike and Bonnie, receiving lots of advice on the way. Lunch is very tasty and is a work treat. We realize that this is only the second time we’ve been treated to a meal since leaving in June, and boy was it appreciated! So nice to have a meal we neither had to make nor pay for. 

Afterward we pack up and head on to check out our lot. Can’t miss it, the tent is already set up. Other than a shipping container (that our key unlocks) and a lone palm tree, it’s a big, empty gravel lot. Markings on the ground indicate a parking area and where the fence will be set up.

  
We glance through the shipping container and stroll around the neighborhood. Across the street is a little shopping center (breakfast place, quick-serve fondue restaurant, a Crossfit gym and more). Diagonally across the intersection is a gas station and directly across from us is a Walgreens. Next door is a church building.

We stock up on groceries at Sprouts, a farmer’s market style store and park. It’s home and settled till after October…