For those not in the know, I am married to a man who is obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. When not traveling, our summer has been consumed by this orange monstrosity that currently weighs almost 400 lbs and gains 20-30 pounds a day.
Jamie documents its growth on his goofy pumpkin blog,which sort of gets my juices flowing in a weird sort of way.
Especially when he talks about Chlorothalonil fungicide.
But make no mistake, this obsession comes at a price and the cost is a husband who obsessively charts its growth. Who is always online looking for fertilizers. And a man who lives at his parent’s house every evening to provide Dillboy (yes, he named it) with TLC.
Just why is he growing Dillboy at his parent’s house? Because we do not have room to house the orange monstrosity’s vines that measure about 24 X 30 feet.
Instead, he is schooling Hadley on the Fine Art of Pumpkin Growing and her “little” 100+ pounder is taking over a corner of our yard.
Four weeks ago, I staged an intervention. I was sitting on his parent’s deck when he came home from work, breezed past me without a glance and proceeded to tend to his pumpkin for the next 20 minutes. After he finally acknowledged my existence, I blubbered, “You didn’t even say ‘hi’ to me first!”
Note to self: do not stage an intervention when you are PMSing and hormonal. The pumpkin will come out looking better than you.
Jamie has opted not to enter it in our town’s harvest festival, leaving all the glory to Hadley who he hopes will win the children’s division. Rather, he will be at Colorado’s largest competition against The Big Boys–those men whose wives have been suffering from the obsession for years.
I knew it had truly gotten out of hand a month ago. When I was in Canada with the children, I left pictures of us with little notes about how much we loved and missed him all around the house.
A week later, I went to San Francisco for BlogHer. And what was on our headboard upon my return?
‘Nuff said.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 