(See photos of most of the pumpkin creations at the bottom of this blog entry).

I guess I’m too old to play the pouty-face. While the child-like, mock despair may still work on my dad, I know it doesn’t work on my boyfriend and now I know it doesn’t work with my boss.
I wanted to write a big, front page story about the Root Family and their ongoing adventures with mystery pumpkins.
Happy news is fun, and orange, happy news is even better.
If I’m in the minority in this sentiment, I’m sure I’m not totally alone.
Yet, if something happens four years in a row, it is no longer considered “news,” my bossman said.
Luckily, I have this column, this happy, sappy corner of the newspaper where decorated orange orbs have their moment of glory.

Here’s the scoop
Beginning Oct. 1, the Root Family, again, began receiving fully-adorned pumpkins on their fence posts. This has happened four years in a row.
Each year, I’ve asked family members if they know who the secret artist may be. Each time, they say no.
Last year, I began asking family members if they are lying.
Eric Root said he and his parents (Sherri and Marvin) have decided they don’t want to know who gives these fabulous gifts.
I did not ask them if they still believe in Santa.

If you’re clever, share the joy
The person who decorates the pumpkins, 12 so far this year, is talented.
This time, some nieces and a nephew visited Chico and the Root family asked the young girls to crayon a note to the pumpkin-crafter. The girls wrote some things they like, and traced their little hands, which is something little kids like to do.
The decorated fruit that arrived was astounding. Not only did s(he) use the children’s ideas, but she used the sketches of their hands in the designs.
One girl wanted a whale. A whale she got, with glass baubles assembled to make a blue whale. At the top of the pumpkin, more baubles were used to show the whale’s spout, in the exact same shape as the child’s hand.
The nephew likes John Deere tractors, and he got a pumpkin decorated with a tractor. Where steam rises above the engine’s exhaust pipe, the plumes are in the shape of the boy’s hands.
The second niece likes butterflies. You need to look closely, but you can see that the sketches of two hands are placed together to make the wings of the insect.
Then there’s the mustache mobile — with small, decorative pumpkins, each with a black mustache. The hairy decorations were for no known reason, and no one in the family traced their mustache onto paper.
So why is this story so important to tell? Because it’s good, clean, creative fun. Here we have someone doing something very nice for someone else.
Is this news? Well, probably not. But even if acts of kindness happen all the time, I think part of my job is to share it with readers.
To see all the 12 pumpkins in a row:
http://www.tout.com/m/upc0q3

Overall, I think insects are very cool. They help to break down the organic trash heaps of the world, provide nourishment for the critter food chain and are occasionally mesmerizing in their beauty.
Yet, they can also bite, spread disease and fly out of dried noodles.
Last week I had some serious heebie-jeebies when Ashley Gebb was researching her story about bed bugs.
One of my favorite aunts brought bed bugs home after a night at a rather swank hotel.
This was years ago, before people knew much about these terrors of the night.
My aunt, a college instructor, did endless research to help others avoid the anguish she endured. She informed the family on proper hotel check-in protocol — pushing back the mattresses to look for tiny blood streaks at the edge of the mattress.
(Much more on bedbugs can be found here: http://goo.gl/8yAqgE).
My poor aunt. She was trying to help us. Instead, the family battled for years trying to avoid having holidays at her (formerly) infested home.
When Ashley wrote her recent story, I thought about one of my favorite hobbies — thrift store shopping. I remembered my aunt’s advice to always put new (to you) clothes in the dryer for two minutes, even if you bought them at Nordstrom’s.
Another bug recently entered my consciousness — the brown marmorated stink bug, http://goo.gl/rJWFb5, a new pest near an open window near you.
When I first heard about the bug, Ag Commissioner Richard Price was still trying to confirm it was here.
During the wait, I was chatting on the phone in my kitchen when a bug popped through the crack of my kitchen window screen.
Luckily it landed in a spider web, and I took pictures as it writhed, trapped and vulnerable.
When Richard called with the official report, I had news for him.
Stink bugs are kind of funny if you don’t have them living under your house. The idea that a bug defends itself by emitting a sulfur smell makes me want to giggle like a third-grader.
But they’re also a big nuisance and it will only get worse.
Once they’re in your yard they will naturally seek the warmth of your house in winter. You can’t blame them. You’d do the same.
This week I was chatting on the phone with wet fingernails. I saw what I thought was a wasp buzzing near the light fixture.
Great, I thought. It’s 10 o’clock at night, I don’t want to put the phone down and my fingernails are wet.
When the bug landed, I noted it was, indeed, the dreaded brown marmorated stink bug.
I wasn’t about to squish it, because Richard Price said you need to use Lysol afterwards to get rid of the smell.
With a dispensable plastic cup in one hand, I cradled the phone to my ear and stepped onto the bed. With the mouth of the cup pressed against the ceiling, the phone cradled on my ear and wet fingernails, I realized I had nothing to cover the top of the cup. So I reached with my toes onto the dresser and grabbed a wash rag.
That’s multi-tasking.
Now the stinkbug is outdoors, and alive, where it will no doubt multiply and encourage its children to seek the warmth of my no-kill zone.
I’m also now wondering if stink bugs are attracted to people talking on the telephone.
The online fact sheet from Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, http://goo.gl/3ud4zY, explains that in large numbers a colony of stink bugs release pheromones that tell others to join the party, although this is not the same odor that people learn to know and hate.
The good news, according to the fact sheet, is that while they want to come into your home during the fall, they won’t breed until they’re outdoors during the spring.
The fact sheet doesn’t give many clues for control, except to say if it gets really bad you can have the outside of your home sprayed. The bugs are known to have done some serious damage to crops in Pennsylvania and other rich terrain. Richard said we should expect less than joy on fruit trees, grapes, peppers and beans.

We take our little slices of beauty where we can.
After several nights returning home after dark, I have to acknowledge that summer is over.

It’s not just my imagination this time. The www.timeanddate.com website confirms we’re losing about 21⁄2 minutes of sunlight each day.
Pretty soon we’ll all be taking vitamin D supplements and rolling our quarters to buy Christmas presents.
In the meantime, try to leave work early to be in awe of autumn. The clouds can be ginormous this time of year and so close you think you can smell them. Or is that chimney smoke?
We’re lucky in Chico where smart people planted plenty of Chinese Pistache, Raywood Ash and Ginkgo biloba. Even the orchards, especially walnuts, turn a nice amber color.
On a recent evening walk with my sister in Paradise, we saw a tree that was half green. The other half was the exact color of her recent home hair coloring — Ronald McDonald red.
In Paradise, the trees are really turning the corner. Chico trees are just getting started.
If you drive down the Midway right now, and cup each hand on the side of your eyes, it looks like you’re driving through a tunnel of green, yellow and orange.
Perhaps we’ll get some rain this winter. On a normal year, fall is a good time to plant new trees and shrubs so they grow sturdy roots during the cold months.
Shopping now is a good idea if you have an eye for fall. You’ll get a vibrant impression of what to expect in future years.

Leaves — nature’s natural accessories
While I’m currently hung up on what the leaves look like, soon they’ll fall and turn to mulch.
Many people run over leaves with a lawn mower so they are smaller, then add them to an active compost bin. You can also drizzle them over bare spots in the yard like fall-colored confetti. In addition to coming in fall fashion colors, they keep the weeds down.
After eating Halloween candy, you can use leaves to stuff the pants that are now too small, and make decorative scarecrows.
If you’re on a vacation in a cabin in the woods with your extended family, you can make wreaths from fall leaves. Buy a wreath-starter at Michael’s craft store, borrow a glue gun, and go gather leaves in the woods until it’s time for dinner.
On a recent outdoor excursion, my sister and I picked up fistsful of deep oranges and reds.
We also pocketed a few handfuls of mottled green olives along the walking path.
When I got home I dumped them on the kitchen counter and — wowza. It looked like a Martha Stewart Thanksgiving centerpiece, or at least one suited for Heather’s Hovel.
I’m thinking you can use fall leaves exactly the same way you would use spring flowers, including tucking behind your ear.
• Pin them to your lapel, just because.
• Cut some longer twigs and make a fall leaf bouquet.
• Decoupage the front of your refrigerator.
• Hang a leaf mobile in your baby room.
• Make a garland of leaves for the front door threshold.
• Better Homes and Garden, http://goo.gl/12EtwF, suggests taping leaves to the wall with clear tape.
• Leaves can also be scattered all over the floor, for that vintage inside-the-barn holiday look.
• Better yet, scatter leaves in a romantic trail leading toward your lair.

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Hush — don’t ask me about the home search.
That’s the reaction I’ve given friends over the past several months.
You see, it’s exhausting to get all excited and then get disappointed in equal measure.
After this fifth bid on a home, it looked close.
I even got giddy for half a second — daydreaming about plush bath mats and the perfect wind chime.
For Christmas, I would ask my family for gift cards to home improvement stores …
I was so thrilled with my home-buying prospects that I called Gwen Quail, a consulting rosarian, to ask how to safely move my rose bushes.

Free rose show Oct. 19
Nothing like a free event to get your mind off disappointment. The annual Butte Rose Society event, www.butte-rosesociety.org, will be 1-4 p.m. at Our Divine Savior Church Community Hall, 566 E. Lassen Ave.
Did I mention the show is free?
After 20 years as a member, Bill Reynolds made a big push to make this year very special, Gwen said, and it’s more like a “festival” than a “show.”
People will have the chance to ask almost every question they ever had about roses, and 11 consulting rosarians will have answers.
Also, there will be roses to see and smell. About 800 are expected for the rose competition.
Kids will be given things to do, and grown-ups who join the rose society will get a free rose bush.
Moving a rose
In case you have plans to move a rose bush, Gwen said the summer is the worst time, as heat adds to stress.
But roses are hardy, so making a move before April should be OK.
If someone hypothetically wanted to move a rose in a few months, she suggested pruning it back now to 18 inches to two feet. Do all the normal pruning that is done, including trimming deadwood and cutting back to the strongest canes.
After the size has been reduced, start digging when it’s time to move.
Soak the soil about a week before, for better digging.
The hole should be at least two feet deep, and as wide as the rose — 3-4 feet.
The key is to save the soil the where the plant grew.
Later you’ll mix in some compost and any soil amendments of choice. But the home soil will help with the transition.
Opinions vary on amendments, Gwen said. Some people swear by bone meal. Others like soil that contains microbes. Chicken manure isn’t bad.
Whatever your choices, use good compost, she said.
In the meantime, I’m going to take some cuttings from my favorite rose bushes, and hope for the best.
Gwen said to look for the healthiest, strongest stems. Expect that for 10 cuttings, maybe one or two will survive.
She suggested poking the cuttings into the edge of a pot and digging up any that look promising later on.

Jump for joy if you love orange. This is your month.
You can buy orange greeting cards, crepe paper, candle holders, place mats and storage bins, all conveniently located in the same shopping aisle.
You can wear your Oregon Beavers sweatshirts and blend right in.
Keep walking down the aisle (in your orange sweatshirt) and you’ll see a tower of candy, from floor to eye-level.
I love pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds, pumpkin carving and even watching carved pumpkins rot in the windowsill. But come on now … how much pumpkin pushing is really necessary?
At the grocery store this week there were three huge bins of pumpkins near the shopping carts. How convenient.
In case I missed 1.5 tons of pumpkins by the doorway, there were more placed precariously above the cheese and lunchmeat.
I don’t have children, but if I did, I would blindfold them before shopping. If I invested the money I saved, I could pay for their counseling when they became adults.

Displaced pumpkins
My beau and I traveled through Half Moon Bay this week. The coast has greenhouses the way the Sacramento Valley has farms — row after row of enclosed structures with young plants.
Most of the nurseries had huge piles of pumpkins out front. The orange fruit was scattered about, among hay bales. I guess we were supposed to pretend the pumpkins grew that way, and the vines magically disappeared.
After passing several pumpkin patches, we were cracking up. There must have been enough pumpkins to provide jack o’lanterns to every man woman, child and Chihuahua from Santa Cruz to Arcata.
The Garmin took us off-track and we stumbled upon the pumpkin parking lot — where a line of trucks were filled with pumpkins.
I shouldn’t scoff too much at these merchants. They’re just trying to make a buck. And if you think about it, Brussels sprouts are in season on the coast right now. A giant display of Brussels sprouts just doesn’t have the same seasonal charm.
Pumpkins, of course, grow in warm climates. Seventy percent, in fact, are grown in San Joaquin County, according to the University of California fact sheet http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/7222.pdf.
I feel self-righteous in my snobbery of displaced pumpkin displays. You see, we are fortunate enough in Butte County to support actual pumpkin production.
That’s something we can embrace.

Buy orange fruit locally
Ronnie Cockrell called and reminded me that the Chico Unified students were at it again, selling pumpkins on the 10-acre farm on Henshaw where they learn to grow and sell “food,” and offer families something fun to do on a Saturday.
See the story here: http://goo.gl/CN2Vk3.
Last year, and others years before, my friends and family visited TJ Farms, 3600 Chico Ave., http://www.tjfarmsestates.com/seasonal.
We posed the rubber chicken in many compromising positions, pet tame animals and bought pickled cucumbers that were grown on the farm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be — a real farm, where real pumpkins grow.
I’m not sure where all the pumpkin patches are located this year. But if you have one, and send me a note, I’ll make sure the information gets printed somewhere in the newspaper, or at least in online electrons.

For more inane prattle, check out my blog at www.norcalblogs.com/sowthere. For feedback, send to P.O. Box 9, Chico CA 95927 or hhacking@chicoer.com.