C5

By Susan Zielinski
The Canadian Press

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RED DEER, Alta. - Forget the battle for the biggest pumpkin. An Alberta farm has pumpkins that can fly.

The pumpkinator can launch a squash almost a kilometre through the air.

"It's built out of a 500-gallon propane tank, the barrel is 10 inches in diameter and 20 feet long," said pumpkinator designer and operator Blaine Staples at the first public demonstration at his farm south of Red Deer earlier this month.

"As far as we've been able to determine, this is probably the biggest cannon in Canada," he told the crowd of about 65 people waiting at The Jungle Farm to witness the flight of the first gourd.

Staples set the air compressor to 35 pounds. The crowd shouted out the count down and - pooouuuuuf - the pumpkin soared to the shrieks and cheers of both children and adults.

"I'm not a bullet. I'm a pumpkin," said Aiyden Nash, 4, of Red Deer as he imitated the airborne vegetable.

"It was cooool."

When Staples asked the crowd if he should try one more. Pumpkinator fans yelled - YEAH!

Larry Hildebrandt of Didsbury said he was amazed how far the pumpkins flew.

"Just think of all the other things you could launch," Hildebrandt said with a laugh.

The device was constructed by Red Willow Welding Ltd. of nearby Innisfail. Staples was thinking about issuing a challenge next year to local fabrication shops, maybe getting the mechanic students at Olds College involved.

"I think there's a lot of potential."

He designed the pumpkinator after seeing other pumpkin cannons in action down south.

"I saw some of these in the States and was kind of intrigued and felt it was time we had one up here in Alberta.

"It's something different. I think every guy has aspirations to be a junk yard mechanic."

And the possibilities are endless.

"I've got to try some cabbages. I've got to see how far it will shoot a football," Staples said with a smile.

The farm was staying open until the end of the month in an attempt to sell two acres of pumpkins, Leona Staples said, and visitors were being given the opportunity to see the pumpkinator in action on the weekends throughout the month.

"We had a phenomenal pumpkin crop this year, which is weird because we had a cold spring. But it was the very warm fall that made our pumpkin crop," she said.

Even though a few pumpkins will have a smash landing in his field, Blaine Staples said it's not a waste.

"I'm sure we'll have pumpkins growing in the wheat field next year."