Pumpkins, Witches, and Melonheads, Oh My!

**DISCLAIMER**
I promise we didn’t break any laws during the adventures mentioned in the below post! 🙂

After sharing about one of my favorite cemeteries last week, I thought I’d keep the spooky trend going for today’s post. I love Fall, friends! In fact, I love every season and pretty much every holiday. Any reason to decorate, celebrate and spread joy – sign me up! 

That’s why this Fall, despite a global pandemic and living three hours away from my fiancé, we scheduled some Fall fun. It’s been great being back home helping my mom these past several months and I love that every time Doug visits, I get to share more of my hometown’s history. Here are some of my favorite Fall traditions to do around my hometown. If you’re local, check them out. If not, come visit! Or, I’m sure you can find a lot of great places near you for Fall fun! 

Apple Picking: 

Patterson’s Fruit Farm is a staple around these parts. A couple of weekends ago, we took an afternoon to enjoy all the wonderful Fall fun Patterson’s has to offer! First, it’s important to know that Patterson’s has two locations, not far from one another, so make sure to visit both. We chose to visit the Market and walk the grounds at the Caves Road location first, then we went to the Mulberry Road location to walk through the apple orchards! The Market sells all kinds of delicious goodies like bags of apples and apple drinks including hot cider, cider slushies and apple juice – all made on site. They even have a fresh bakery serving up donuts, apple fritters, apple dumplings, every flavor pie imaginable, and more. I highly recommend an apple fritter and the hot cider. YUM!

All Things Pumpkin:

This past weekend, we had more Fall fun starting with the pumpkin patch. There are some popular pumpkin patches in our area, all of which are wonderful, but to me, there’s only one place to get your pumpkins – Mulberry Corners. Owned by Soubusta Farms, the pumpkin patch has a wide variety at great prices including all kinds of pumpkins, gourds, painted pumpkins, mums, corn stalks, and squash. Plus, they have a small corn maze for the kiddos. We had a lot of fun visiting Mulberry Corners to pick our pumpkins and couldn’t wait to get home to carve them! Be sure to check out Soubusta Farms in the Winter too where you can pick your own Christmas Tree!

I love carving pumpkins! It’s one of my favorite things to do. We started by cutting out the bottom of our pumpkins and pulled out the pumpkin seeds. While the pumpkin seeds were in the oven, we started on our masterpieces. Doug picked the haunted house and I picked the witch. Which one is your favorite? I’d love to see your pumpkins too! Be sure to share them in the comments section below. 

The Witch’s Stone:

Next up, I took Doug to see the Witch’s Stone. Legend has it, Ruth (Holbrooke) Smith was one of the earliest witches of our time and was murdered in 1814 by locals for her crimes five years after fleeing here from Derby, CT. The legend continues to say no one wanted a witch buried in their cemetery so they chose to bury her out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, it’s just that – local lore those of us from here grew up with. The truth behind this legend is, Levi and Ruth Smith were one of the region’s first settlers. They had a very large estate and when Ruth passed she was buried on a far corner of the property. To read more about the Smith’s famous grave marker, visit here. 

The Melonheads:

Last, but certainly not least, I shared with Doug the legend of the Melonheads. The story goes Dr. Crowe and his wife were said to have been tasked with caring for children that were being taunted by locals because they had hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain). The day the wife passed away, the children were inconsolable, thrashing about in the cabin in the woods, eventually knocking over a lantern and burning the house down with everyone locked inside. Supposedly these children haunt the woods and if you go at night, they’ll reveal themselves to you through the trees and try to push your car into the ravine.

Doug and I drove down both ends of Wisner Road at dusk only to be met with a gated dead end where the foundation of the cabin is said to sit on top of a hill just beyond the gate. While we didn’t see any Melonheads, or have fingerprints on our bumpers, it was spooky enough to be faced with a construction gate that has an address attached to it but no way in! We certainly weren’t going to trespass but I had fun sharing this spooky tale with him! 

I think I’m spooked out after sharing those tales with all of you! We had so much Fall fun this past weekend. I hope you have been enjoying all the Fall fun in your hometown. 

What Fall fun have you been having? What spooky legends are famous in your town? And don’t forget to share those pumpkin photos!

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