1999 Growers Log - October
3rd place Win at Smoky Lake!
The pumpkin from my Sproule 968 plant is now officially the Kournikakis 553, as seen on the weighing scale up at Smoky Lake (553.5 to be exact). We just missed second place by a few pounds to Fred Lobay's 559 pounder. John Lobay finally broke the 700 pound barrier with a 751 pound pumpkin. This is the first ever over 700 in Alberta.
The shot above is of my daughter Kaylee next to our pumpkin. She is holding the plaque for third place (left ) plus another plaque for being the competitor from the furthest distance. The plaques are seen close-up below
I was thrilled to finally have an off icial 500+ pumpkin, but it almost never made it to the weighoff. So, as Paul Harvey might say..."and now for the REST of the story". Medicine Hat to Smoky Lake is a distance of about 600 km, most of it on secondary highways. It's a pretty long drive, almost 9 hours with rest stops. Our plan was to lift the pumpkin on the evening of Sept. 30th, load it into the truck and head up to Smoky Lake on Oct 1st , stay overnight and attend the weighoff on the 2nd. This is where the plot thickens
I had a lousy nights sleep as did my daughter Zoe. In the morning we found I had a fever of 103 and Zoe had a fever of 102. A quick trip to the walk-in clinic and we learned with both had a nasty bacterial throat infection and neither of us was in any shape to go anywhere except back to bed. In addition, although it wasn't fully apparent until later, I had badly strained both my arms during the lift.
At this point the trip was off. The kids were disappointed and crying and I sure felt like it. I had a personal best and couldn't go to the weighoff. A great growing season was about to be lost . I thought of all the options and there were only two. a) forget about it and b) ask my wife to take the pumpkin and head up to the contest without me.
There are love songs written about promising your love the moon, or climbing the highest mountain and crossing the seven seas etc etc. Well, talk is cheap. MY WIFE, said OK. She took our youngest to her mother, convinced her friend Wendy to come along, packed other daughter Kaylee (still healthy) in the truck and left Zoe and I at home and drove 600 km, to Smoky Lake to get to that contest and enter our pumpkin. She sat there in Smoky Lake with our cell phone and called me so I could hear the announcements over the phone as they weighed my pumpkin and the couple that followed it and that we had won third place.
Our pumpkin may have won third prize but my wife wins the first prize. I am a very lucky guy. and I wanted to share this little tale with you. So now you know "the REST of the story".
