Farming has been the Dussel family's main source of income for 60 years. Mike's great-grandfather bought the Brimfield farm in the late 1940s for $12,000 in cash. Fourteen years ago, the Dussels decided to stop raising feeder cattle and stick to crop farming with the addition of one new crop: pumpkins. Today, pumpkins produce a substantial amount of the family's income.

Mike Dussel Sr. says more of the family's income comes from nontraditional farming.

"Halloween decorating is competitive with Christmas decorations," Mike Sr. says. "There is a strong market."

In October, muddy pumpkins pepper about 50 acres of their 385 acres. The Dussels rent an extra 185 acres for corn and other crops.

The farm is transformed into a Halloween wonderland in the fall. Rows of hand-picked pumpkins border the right side of the 19th century home.

Halloween decorations are hung on the barns. Every year, a straw replica of the fabled headless horseman straddles a straw horse holding a pumpkin head in his right hand. Customers and their children swarm to the farm to purchase a soon-to-be jack-o-lantern.

"Halloween is a big production around here," says Linda Dussel, Mike's mother. "Customers tell me they drive by throughout the year, and their children recognize the farm and say, 'Look mommy, it's the pumpkin farm.' Farming pumpkins has let us maintain our farm within the suburban area. We get customers from Cleveland. I would love to hang up an Ohio map and have customers put a pin up where they are from, just to see what kind of spread we get."

While Mike, his father, his brother, Chris, and employees are in the fields harvesting the pumpkins and Indian corn, his mother and grandmother run the stands.

"Pumpkins are the culmination of the summer," Mike Sr. says. "We plant the seeds in spring and harvest the pumpkins in early fall."

Mike says it takes a special skill to plant the pumpkin seeds. A corn planter machine is transformed into a pumpkin planter as Mike pushes the seeds down a tube one by one by hand while riding along a plowed field. The placement of the seeds is important to the crop's success. A machine-operated planter cannot determine the size of the seed, which is also vital to production.

"Drop. Drop. Drop. You hear this in your head," Mike says. "Every three seconds, you drop a new seed. We blend a lot of seeds, and this is really the only way to do it. It can get really boring, but it has to be done. If we couldn't sell pumpkins, hay and Indian corn, this farm would probably be a giant Kmart."

Linda says she likes knowing her family helped all those tiny seeds grow into plump pumpkins.

"That big production we put on at Halloween, it all came from a seed," she says with a smile. "When you watch something grow, it's like watching kids grow. You feel proud. It's got to be something you're born with, to love watching things grow."