Nothing says autumn like a pumpkin flying into the air at 600 MPH

Admit it, you want to try this yourself.

Pumpkin cannon could be ultimate big-boy toy

Farmer, buddy must be out of their gourds

HURLEY — John Gill tucks a gray pumpkin under his arm and climbs to the top of a rusty ladder. He opens a hatch on the side of a steel pipe, drops the pumpkin inside and sprays it with magenta paint.

"So we can find it later," he says.

The hum of an air compressor stops and, for a moment, the Ulster County hillside is silent.

"You guys ready?"

Gill pulls on a pair of yellow leather gloves, grabs a lever above his head and yanks it.

VAZEWWWWWW!

The pumpkin zips out of the pipe. It's a poppy seed in the sky before a second passes. Then it's gone.

"Ha-ha!" Gill is chuckling. "Isn't that awesome? That's why we built it!"

Forget your souped-up motorcycle. Never mind your heavy-construction equipment. Leave your muscle car at home.

This is a real big-boy toy: a pumpkin cannon with a 97-foot-long barrel that shoots gourds roughly 4,000 feet, at a speed of 600 miles per hour.

Read all of Adam Bosch’s story in the Times Herald-Record and view the photo gallery by Steve Borland.  This video’s by John Pertel.

Gary Arold of Kingston and John Gill of Hurley built the coolest toy around, a 60-foot tall piece of farm artillery that can shoot bowling ball-sized objects -- such as pumpkins -- up to a mile. On most weekends, the owners are busy entertaining customers by hurling various calibers of squash near Gill's Farm Market on Route 209 in Hurley. On Tuesday, they fired a few rounds off for Reporter Adam Bosch, Photographer Steve Borland, and Videographer John Pertel.

Comments

[merciless]

Boys.

[actor212]

The trebuchet method is far cooler.

[Rana]

I wonder where the pumpkins land?

[Rana]

I'm amused that the one guy is described as "Canon Engineer".

I'm now envisioning a body of work researching the aerodynamics of squash-shaped projectiles.

[actor212]

Rana,

If he's aiming east, he might hit Kingston (kidding, sort of). My guess is he's aiming west, which is into Catskill Park.

Actually, looking at Google Maps, it looks like he can hit the back end of Gill's Farm, it's that big.

[Zach]

Four Words:

World

Championship

Punkin

Chunkin

Live them, love them :D

Nov 6th, 7th and 8th, 2009.. Nassau Delaware.. the countdown continues!

[Victoria]

For years, we have heard stories about our friend's canon - a pirate canon - he used to shoot oranges and apples from the back of his car as a teen. Apparently, there were a bunch of guys driving around town with these things - sending showers of lemons and such onto beaches and into picnic areas. This same friend called my husband just yesterday to say, "I have some wire chairs I want to flatten. Got any ideas?" - The immediate plan was to use my husband's sculpture studio and with the help of forklift and pulleys drop a huge iron table from the 25' ceiling onto the chairs. (Here, only the wife seems to be thinking of all the ways this gambit could go catastrophically wrong. They are gleeful and excited. I'm telling you, it's a real chi raiser.) But later in the day my husband spies a stranger on a steamroller, and now that guy is giddy, too.

Definitely a boy thing.