MVL students build medieval trebuchet

Will hurl

pumpkins

at Oct. 5

Pumpkinfest 4

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Four years ago, Ron Domeier quit raising sheep on his small ranch west of New Ulm.

Wondering what to do with several acres of land near his home, he decided to grow pumpkins. The pumpkins grew and grew and grew even in light soil with no maintenance.

Last spring, New Ulm Cathedral students and teachers planted four pumpkin seeds every six feet in four fields on the ranch. Domeier said he didn't need to water his pumpkins even during the late summer dry spell this year.

"I just let nature take its course," Domeier said.

Pumpkinfest, a Catholic Aid Matching Grant Fund Raiser -- that has become an ecumenical event -- grew along with the pumpkins. Next Sunday, the 4th Annual Pumpkinfest will be held at Milford Pumpkin Ranch, 3 1/2 miles west of New Ulm on CSAH 27.

The event includes several thousand pumpkins of all sizes, gourds, live music from 1-3 p.m., corn stalks, a walk through Scare Crow Avenue, and a petting zoo. Lumina (white) pumpkins will also be available. Some pumpkins are as heavy as 20 pounds.

A new Pumpkinfest wrinkle this year is a trebuchet (medieval engine of war with a sling for hurling missiles). The trebuchet was built earlier this year by Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School students Philip Wels, Jonas Leyrer, Rachel Frederich and Bob Martens.

Wels said Leyrer came up with the idea early this spring to build the trebuchet out of wood and wheels from a salvaged Honda automobile.

"It was all Jonas' idea, so we decided to built it, just for the fun of it," Wels said.

The quartet, aka NUTS (New Ulm Trebuchet Society), began hurling rejected garden zucchinis and large rocks well over 100 feet in the air. Domeier said it isn't beyond reason to hurl a 10-pound or less pumpkin more than 300 feet with a trebuchet.

The Wels family has been watching television shows about trebuchets in action with interest lately on NOVA, broadcast on Minnesota Public Television.

Domeier said that if it wasn't for a recent block party that included the Wels family, the trebuchet would never have come into play at Pumpkinfest.

The NUACS Haunted Corn Maze will be held 7:30-10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Oct. 10-11 at the Milford Pumpkin Patch. Proceeds will benefit the NUACS Technology Fund.