A lovely day at the Pumpkin farm

Today, after the fire was out (more on that later), I packed up my grumpy family (both wife and child were tired and sniffly) and we all went to the pumpkin farm. What a great time! We picked out about a dozen pumpkins and gourds of all sorts, had some hot apple cider, and let the princess run around the haybale maze and pet the baby goat. Funny incident with the goat: the mother goat was tied to the tree nibbling on grass, while the kid romped around in close proximity. Princess R and a few other small ones were all gathered around the baby goat petting it, and the mother was getting a little peeved. Well, the mother goat walked right up to princess R, and gave her a shove with her head! It knocked her back a step. It wasn't a forceful hit, just a solid shove. but she definitely got her message across: "Get away from my baby!". Princess R was so shocked, I saw her face crumple up and I thought she was going to cry, but she pulled it together and complained: "Daddy! the goat pushed me!" then, to the goat: "NO THANK YOU, GOAT!" as she's taught to say in Preschool. So when we got home there was some pumpkin carving to do. I love the smell of it. In the coming weeks we'll hollow out a few of the gourds to dry, and decorate the place with piles of great autumn squashes. By the way, "princess R" is not a fawning parental nickname, it's this thing she's on lately with always having to be dressed like a "princess". That means a skirt, fancy shoes, costume jewelry, and sometimes a little tiara. I swear, you try to get pants on that child and she throws a full-scale tantrum. All she wants is to be a princess and play princess and act out scenes with wands and goblins and Princes and Kings and Queens and witches. Unfortuantely she "kills" the witches - she gets that from all her horrid movies and fairy tales: even Dora is to blame. Gonna have to nip that one. And the fire - it was a blaze down the street at the apartment building. An apartment had smoke billowing out of the balcony doors, fire engines and ambulaces closed off our street, everyone from the building evacuated and hanging out all over the neighbourhood holding cat carriers and cell phones. The fire was put out pretty quickly, but there was this guy hanging from the balcony (the one where the fire was) for a few hours. We couldn't go anywhere for most of the day because ambulances were blocking the road. The story was going to be on the news, but I didn't get to watch it tonight so I don't know what happened with the dude on the balcony.