Pumpkin Tossing for 20 Years and counting
2003 Catapult
Back in early 2003, a friend who worked for the Town of South Kingstown's Parks and Recreation Department came to me with a strange request. Could I throw pumpkins using a catapult? I was in my early thirties, I had been messing with tools and old buildings for over ten years, and I had exactly the kind of ill-backed confidence that makes a person say an immediate yes before thinking it through.
The First Machine
That first catapult was spring-loaded, built from garage door springs, pressure-treated 6x6s, a great many bolts, and a salad bowl to hold the pumpkin. It valiantly lasted two seasons at Curtis Corner Road School before it finally vibrated itself apart. Which, if you have ever built something out of springs and optimism, you will understand, was always going to happen eventually.
Getting Serious With a Trebuchet
The third season is when it got serious. After several months of research and design, we landed on a trebuchet that could be taken apart and put back together wherever we hauled it. Before long, we were tossing pumpkins, watermelons, and bowling balls at four or five events a year. My wife started calling herself the Trebuchet widow, and she was not entirely joking.
The 2005 trebuchet using a boat anchor for a counter weight
The Black Knight
In 2008, we replaced that machine with a newer trebuchet that did not need to be dismantled and could travel on demand. We called it the Black Knight. It was built using traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery from large white oak timbers, with a steel basket fabricated by an emerging group of metalworkers at a place in Providence called the Steel Yard. The Black Knight kept performing for the next decade, long enough that we started seeing kids who came to the early throws show back up as adults, telling us they always looked forward to it every year. That part still gets me.
Rob Cagnetta and his Trebuchet
Sydney, the budding trebuchet expert
Finding a Permanent Home
After about seventeen years on the road, we decided the trebuchet had earned a permanent home. The Farmer's Daughter had become the regular destination for the event around 2017, usually held just after Halloween. We lost 2020 and 2021 to the obvious reasons, so we are genuinely thrilled to have it back.
Come Throw With Us
The event happens near the end of October at the Farmer's Daughter in South Kingstown. Come watch a pumpkin fly farther than a pumpkin has any business flying. Twenty years in, it is still one of our favorite days of the year.
