The Great Pumpkin Quest...

With only a few days left to find the perfect pumpkin many are heading to the Tapia Brothers Farm on Havenhurst Boulevard in Encino.


Even the tiniest shoppers were busy touching, rolling, slapping and whatever else they needed to do to assure themselves that their choice was above and beyond perfection.

One and a half year old Stella was one of those busy little shoppers. She wandered about like every child does at such a wonderful place like this, eyes wide searching everywhere for something else to sate her curiosity. She moved about with effortless purpose from stall to stall eyeballing animals such a tiny ponies, rabbits and even a small black bull, but, it was the bright orange pumpkins that pulled her back into their circle over and over.

I would be lying if I didn't say that while watching her I was having multiple flashbacks to the first time I visited this pumpkin patch with my now 19 year-old daughter, then again with my son who is now 11. It was wonderful having this time to remember those early days with my then babies. It was an ahhhhhh moment!

Watching Stella, so new and fresh at this adventure, was like watching a blossom just as it's beginning to open. Still full of awe at the atmosphere in which she now exists, open to anything that crosses her path and sure that around every corner there will always be something new and exciting to touch her heart. What she can take away from this day is a memory of her and her mother stolling about on a sunny October afternoon at 'the pumpkin patch'.

How simple things are when you're looking at it like someone as young as Stella. It makes you realize that many of the complications in our lives are self-induced. Maybe if we all took the time to indulge in the occassional whimsey of a walk among these great orange orbs as I did today it could help us put things in perspective once in a while. Thank you Stella!!

Was this my lucky day? You betcha!