Think of it as a 4-H project gone bad.

That’s what Dick and Letha DeMoss, owners of the DeMoss Pumpkin Farm, 51428 170th Street, jokingly call the business they’ve been running for the past 33 years.

“It was a 4-H project, and our daughter could take produce to the fair and compete. It just developed from there,” said Dick, who is the treasurer and secretary of the Iowa Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. “The first year of this, our daughter had nine little pumpkins she sold on the side of the road, and now we grow about 12,000.”

The DeMosses are retired ISU employees; Dick served as manager of central stores for 20 years, and Letha worked in family and consumer sciences for 41 years. Dick said his favorite part of his post-retirement job at the farm is having contact with his visitors.

He said that since they have been running the farm for so long, they have seen kids come visit as kindergartners who years later come back with their own children.

“It’s a family experience; it’s tradition,” Dick said of his farm. “They love it out here. It’s not many farms they can get on to now.”

Every year, about 60 to 70 schools visit, and Dick gives educational tours.

“We get to show them things they wouldn’t normally learn about. The kids love it. We get lots of good questions.” Dick said.

He said he shows them how farmers raise chickens and pigs, tells them about the importance of bees in pollinating and takes them through his 16-acre pumpkin patch.

“The kids try to visualize a pie being made out of a pumpkin,” Dick said. “It’s a far reach.”

The DeMoss Pumpkin Farm doesn’t cater to just children, though. It hosts parties for all sorts of groups, from church organizations to corporate businesses to sororities.

He added that they have birthday parties for anyone from 8 to 80 years old, and they provide decorations for weddings and fall holidays.

As for the most interesting thing that’s happened this year, Dick said the weather patterns have been so unusual that the whole country will face a pumpkin shortage this holiday season.

He said the summer started out cool and wet, but then July saw extremely hot temperatures, and October has been one of the coldest on record so far.

This strange pattern “has had a big effect on production.” He explained that the quality of his pumpkins has not decreased; however, they are about 20 percent lighter by weight.

Because of the pumpkin shortage, the DeMosses have received calls from Connecticut, Canada and Pennsylvania from people wanting pumpkins, especially pie pumpkins.

Dick said that people have been buying two weeks earlier than normal, people who wait until the last week before Halloween to buy pumpkins may have trouble finding them.