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Cooks Creek, Manitoba, Canada

I was loading up my second biggest pumpkin for a small weigh-off tomorrow morning. I was using the same lifting structure and pulley system as last year - you’re probably guessing what happened. The pumpkin was just at the height to back the truck underneath it when my brother said "you know, you should probably replace this rope with steel cable", I replied back that the pulley system and rope is rated to 1000lbs and this pumpkin is measuring in around 600lbs, so it shouldn't be a problem. Not three seconds later the rope snapped and all 600lbs came crashing down 3 feet. It split in half almost perfectly.

Now I should have been really pissed off, and I was for a minute or two and then my brother said exactly what I was thinking, "at least it wasn't your big one". Fortunatley I had another pumpkin measuring around 530lbs. so we loaded that one up with no problems and we'll see how I do tomorrow - the 600 pounder would probably given me first place, but who knows.

BTW, the pumpkin that broke was grown on the 842 Eaton and tape out to 590lbs and when I weighed the pieces it came in at 593lbs. The biggest disappointment was that I was giving this pumpkin to the high school where I work so they could carve it. The walls were nice and thick and were very uniform with no thin areas.

9/26/2003 9:32:50 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

ooohhh...I feel for you.

9/26/2003 9:39:32 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

Yikes! SOoooooo Close.. hope the backup goes heavy! Good Luck. Chuck

9/27/2003 6:38:05 AM

Caceres, mid west of Spain

Sorry to hear that a story. Now I am glad to have made my pumpkin device enough for 8000 lbs.

9/27/2003 6:46:23 AM

Oz

all the kings horses,,,,,,,

9/27/2003 9:21:28 AM

Cooks Creek, Manitoba, Canada

I ended up coming in first place with my third pumpkin with a weight of 505lbs which made it about 3% under charts. I won enough money to buy some steel cable ($8.00 for 50 feet of cable with a breaking strength of 2000lbs) and to top up my stock of xx-xx-XX fertilizer. All in all a good day, now if I can just make it to next week with my big one.

9/27/2003 4:51:41 PM