Pumpkin chucking

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Radio interview source: Danny Carroll, owner, Carroll's Pumpkin Farm

Our approach to post-Halloween pumpkin disposal isn't all that exciting. We throw them behind the barn for the sheep to eat.

But, you should see what happens when you launch one from a catapult!

Curtis Carroll is a pumpkin farmer, and he knows how to fling stuff. He read up on medieval machines called trebuchets that were used to attack castles. He doesn't have any reason to hurl rocks or fireballs at anybody, but he does have pumpkins. So, he built a version of a trebuchet that launches the pumpkins like missiles -- much to the delight of visitors to his farm during the Halloween season.

"Basically there's a 750-pound counterweight that's on one side of a throwing arm," Carroll says. "And then we put the pumpkin in a sling that's got a pouch with a couple of ropes attached to the other end, put it up in the air, and let it loose. The sling comes around, opens up and the pumpkin flies out, and goes, about 300 feet when we get it all working right."

Carroll's target of choice? His backyard pond, where the pumpkins end up in a jillion pieces. No word if any fish have been knocked on the noggin in the process, but they do get a hefty meal out of it.