Launching Leftovers

After we were done selling pumpkins in our patch, we had about 200 still left of the almost 500 we grew. We debated about what to do with all the leftovers! We fed some to our neighbor's swine, we took a truckload of rotting ones to the dump, we used some as target practice in our backyard, and we took another truckload to donate to the High School FFA Fall Fundraiser.The FFA's Fundraiser included Pumpkin Smashing and Pumpkin Launching. The larger pumpkins were used in a smashing contest, where each contestant picked a pumpkin and smashed it with a hammer and the winner was the one who's pumpkin pieces landed the furthest away. The smaller pumpkins were used in the Pumpkin Launching, which was held outside. They were catapulted from a trebuchet that the FFA had built. We were the first ones to try out the Pumpkin Launching. The boys each picked a pumpkin out of the pile, walked up the hill to the launch site, and counted down while the FFA members released the pumpkins one at a time through the air. The boys LOVED watching the pumpkins being catapulted! The trebuchet sat on top of a grassy hill right behind the high school, and all the pumpkins smashed into pieces when they hit the school grounds below. The grass was covered in pumpkin guts, seeds, and shells. There was 2 FFA members who drove around on a 4-wheeler with a trailer attached, picking up all the pieces in between pumpkin launches. This was such a creative and fun way to dispose of some of the pumpkins, as well as being helpful to the school's FFA club!