Alison, ‘12

Fall is finally here. You can see it in the changing colors of the leaves, in the Halloween decorations that are popping up in shop windows and across campus, and in my latest slew of photos, the subject of which is a quick trip out to Ashland Berry Farm. For those of you unfamiliar with the Richmond area (and I’m guessing that’s most of you), Ashland Berry Farm is a great big pumpkin patch about 40 minutes from the University.In honor of the cool weather and in an attempt to escape the hustle and bustle of parent’s weekend, my friend Sam and I traversed I-95 and spent our Sunday there.Ashland Berry Farm is a typical pumpkin patch, one that is well-outfitted with corn mazes and those corny wood painted cut-outs that you’re meant to poke your face into. A trip to the fields themselves is free and made by tractor. The sweet, golden scent of warm straw is everywhere and little seeds float gently on the breeze like they do in movies. The ride out to the patch itself takes only a few minutes, but it’s very enjoyable. Once we arrived, Sam and I darted out to the fields in true five-year-old fashion, moving from pumpkin to pumpkin, grabbing the good ones we saw and switching them out with even better ones until we ran out of hands to hold them with. I hadn’t come to Ashland Berry Farm with the intention of bringing back a pumpkin to my dorm room, but you can bet I left with one regardless! I saw this perfect, round, orange honey-colored gourd sitting by itself in the middle of a dirt road to nowhere and simply had to have it.While Sam and I may not have been the oldest visitors to the farm that day, we were definitely the oldest ones who hadn’t brought a small herd of children along with them. I have to admit, I was slightly jealous of all the little kids who were anxiously preparing to carve the pumpkins they’d found. My pumpkin is currently resting on my desk, beside the box of poptarts and a book about evolutionary biology. It may look a bit out of place (not to mention my roomie probably finds its presence completely ridiculous), but it brightens up my day whenever I look at it!I mentioned earlier in the post that this was parent’s weekend. Since you’ve sat through my irrelevant pumpkin patch discussion, I figure I should probably touch on a subject that you’ll be even remotely interested in – Haha. This weekend was more important when I was a freshman, anxious to show my family the exciting world of what they typically referred to as my “college experience.” The University plans a lot of talks, lunches, meet and greets, and tours for parents to participate in while visiting their kids. None of them are mandatory, and to be honest, my parents skipped them all. We had fun just walking around together, getting off campus when we could and eating in Dhall at least once. By now my parents know their way around and can get (sort of) from one place on campus to the other, though they may not know either one by name and instead reference it with obscure descriptions like “the long building with windows” aka Tyler Haynes Commons. They live in town so there wasn’t really a need for them to come visit me out of heartsick longing for my company. Confession: I made my mom come eat lunch with me on Saturday anyway because I was jealous of all the people hanging out with their parents. Don’t judge.Have a good week!P.s. That title is a reference to a song from the movie “Once.” It’s a beautiful one that’s been stuck in my head for a while now, and when I couldn’t think of a good title I decided to make up a bad pun and roll with it. Again I ask you, don’t judge.