In 1986, 100 teams got together in Delaware and formed the very first annual Pumpkin Chunkin event in the US. The idea snowballed across rural America and teams of people started building machines to chuck pumpkins as far as a pumpkin could possibly go. The event even landed it’s own show on Discovery.
My favorite! Not all were medieval in style like this one, but they did all appear to be various forms of a trebuchet.
Coolest. Shit. Ever.
So when a friend emailed our local homeschool group about the Snohomish Pumpkin Hurl and Medieval Faire that was happening up in Everett, WA I knew we had to get to it. Despite my worrying about being too late to see anything good, we made it just in time to see the last round of pumpkins sailing through the air at unimaginable heights and distances. I can’t even explain the EXPLOSION of pumpkin as the flying gourd hit the ground!
How perfect an idea to couple this event with a small, one day medieval faire! I mean if you like that sort of thing. It’s probably a bad idea to expose the kids to things like:
Knights
Archery
Foam weapons. They REALLY hate those foam weapons.
Because the next thing you know they will be dragging you all over the place trying to make you shoot arrows at people dressed in armor. And no one likes having fun when there is violence involved, especially not TJ.
Two head shots. One arrow. For realz.
There was about 200 people there when we arrived and this little festival was so worth the trip. I hope to see it grow over the years, but I did love that it was tiny. Being just outside a city over 100,000 people the size of the event was big welcome surprise. This new experience definitely deserves a repeat. Can’t wait until next year!
