Green Holiday: Birthday

This year for my birthday I wanted an autumn birthday... something with pumpkins, a hay maze and something involving a wheelbarrow. I found a great autumn festival at Carter Mountain Orchard in Charlottesville but it was a bit of a drive for the five of us, so my girlfriend found a wonderful little pumpkin farm in Richmond which allowed us to spend the night in a hotel, swim with Aoife and enjoy my favorite grocery store in Richmond: Whole Foods!

I made up a batch of my grandmother's 14-karat cake in little cupcake form with all organic goodness and lots of love. We carpooled up to the city and enjoyed supporting the local farms by choosing a pick-your-own field (which I'm a huge fan of!) After picking at least 10 pounds of pumpkin, enjoying the great picks at Whole Foods and driving home, I was surprised with a birthday party with friends the weekend I returned home!

Joshua had ordered a cake that resembled my gift from him: a new digital SLR camera, with telescope and macro lenses and Photoshop package. I love supporting local businesses and my friend Beth made a really great cake with a mini-fondant representation of me on top.

I felt as though my reputation as being a greenie has finally permeated all areas of my life, because for my birthday I received fair-trade pottery and fair-labor jewelery and a live autumn plant!

Cailin Coincidence

Just on a random aside, let it be known that my birthday, October 1st is also World Vegetarian Day. How wonderfully serendipitous is that? So not only is my favorite food (pumpkin) widely commemorated beginning October 1st, which is the beginning of it's harvest season, but also it is Vegetarian Awareness Month? Oh, I love it.

[Yes, that's me sitting in a pumpkin patch. That was taken last October on my annual "Autumn Day" where the first apple pie is made, the pumpkins are selected and the first batch of freshly pressed cider is brewed on the stove after a great day tromping through pumpkin patches and bumping around on hay rides. Think of all that amazing fresh air I get, while searching out the amazing pumpkin!]