Keene Pumpkin Festival 2007

The progression for my pumpkin this year is illustrated above.
It received a lot of recognition from local passers-by. I was pleased.
So, the Keene Pumpkin Festival definitely puts to shame the Milford Pumpkin Festival. All this time I thought the Milford one was so great, but no. Well, that's not true. They each have their strong points.

Milford Pumpkin Festival:
- Giant Pumpkin Contest: hundreds to thousands of pounds
- BBQ dudes
- 2.5 days of festival
- home field advantage

Keene Pumpkin Festival:
- 25,000 glowing jack-o-lanterns
- 100% natural maple cotton candy
- fireworks
- more food vendors than you can shake a stick at
- pig farmers?

Okay, let me tell you about MAPLE SYRUP COTTON CANDY! Yes, it's the real deal, made from 100% natural New Hampshire maple syrup. That's right, not maple-flavored-syrup (Mrs. Butterworths, Vermont Maid, etc.) the lady assured me that they used their own 100% maple syrup reduced to a crystallized form replacing the nasty chemical blue/pink/whatever colored/flavored business that is generally seen at these events. Simply brilliant and delicious. I consider it gourmet cotton candy, for connoisseurs only.

Next up, 25,000 jack-o-lanterns! That's an extreme amount! All glowing in the night! Fantastic! Lined up and down main street and three giant tiered towers full of them! Our gang of peoples contributed 12 or so pumpkins to the tally, but the city was still about 6,000 short of taking back the title that Boston had claimed last year, but that's nothing compared to Bennington, VT's pitiful attempt which left them something like 29,000 pumpkins short of the tittle - all in good fun though.

Pig farmers? So, this had potential, but in the end was a letdown. The ladies at work told me that all the pumpkins after the final count end up going to a local pig farm where they are devoured and eventually turned into delicious loin, chops, and bacon. Much to my dismay, I found out that this year the pumpkins were just trucked off to the local landfill. After I heard that I thought I should have taken my pumpkin home with me since it wasn't going to help fatten up some Christmas ham, but then I realized I would have just ended up throwing it away anyways. Whatever.

I will be posting pictures eventually, once I get them all in order and such.