Pumpkin chunkers blast gourds with air cannons

If you live anywhere near Hobart and you're wondering what happened to all the mid-size pumpkins ...  More »

If you live anywhere near Hobart and you're wondering what happened to all the mid-size pumpkins look no further than Trapper Heglin who was up early this morning getting the good ones for he and his crazy friends. "We're looking for something that has a pretty good shape like a basketball," he says looking over the selection at the local United Grocers in Hobart. "It's all about having fun, using what we have laying around the old farm field." Pulled up to a field beside the high school track, a small but very powerful collection of machines gathers for a test run. If they look like artillery pieces then that's a pretty good guess. Todd Duff and his team the �P Shooters� are practicing the art and science of shooting pumpkins for distance and accuracy. "We shot a bowling ball three-quarters of a mile," he boasts. "Compressed air and pull the trigger." It's been several years since Trapper saw some other country boys flinging pumpkins on TV. He has a team now too. "Our team name is �Cocked and Ready LLC," he laughs. "That's Limited Liability Chunkers." He helped organize the 2nd Annual Pumpkin Palooza. These guns form the weekend's activities. Todd and the P-Shooters won last year's Palooza with the P-1000 but they topped themselves with another gun. "It ain't that you got spare time," says Duff. "You got to make time to have fun like this." So if you're really wondering where you can find all the medium size pumpkins this weekend in Hobart chances are good they're out in this field somewhere. Just don't go looking too close.  « Less