Pumpkins, again...

Thanks to all those folks who've submitted comments on yesterday's post with suggestions for names for my two bouncy baby pumpkins. There is still time to leave your suggestions if you haven't already. So have a crack!

This morning I was speaking to my sister in the USA on the telephone. As a faithful reader of my blog, she knew about the Great Pumpkin Search and the resulting $18 pumpkins. I was trying to explain my momentary insanity for paying that much for pumpkins when she said this, "Well, for pumpkins that size, I think you'd probably pay about $10 or $12 for them at my church's pumpkin patch." I was really shocked by this. I just imagined that pumpkins in the USA would only cost $5 or $6 each. I don't know why, but there always seemed to be an abundance of them around when I was a kid and using the simple principles of supply and demand, it seems like an oversupply would equal a lower price. Of course here in Australia the supply is probably quite small and so the price is much, much higher...or so I thought.

After my sister gave me this news of $10 or $12 pumpkins in the USA, I decided I'd work that out using the current exchange rate (which heavily favours the US dollar). Here's what I found, a pumpkin that cost USD$10 would work out to be AUD$15.47 and a pumpkin that cost USD$12 would work out to be AUD$18.57. So if my sister's information is accurate, then perhaps I haven't been insane at all. If people in the USA are spending $12 on a pumpkin, that's the equivalent of my $18 pumpkin. I still think that is a lot to pay for a pumpkin, but I am feeling slightly better about it now.

If you are in the USA, how much did you pay for your pumpkin(s)this year? This is an extremely important question--I must know if I've been robbed or not! Help me if you can, tell me about your pumpkin purchases in the comments section.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got pumpkins to look after.