Forget about the Norman Rockwell touchy feely approach to pumpkins.

You know the one. The frost is on the pumpkins. A black cat snuggled against a pumpkin in the hay.

Pumpkins are serious business in Manteca and Lathrop. When folks aren’t busy shipping a thousand or so truckloads of the fruit — yes they are fruit — to market they’re out shooting off rounds of mini-pumpkins at speed up to 100 mph for $6 a bucket from a bazooka-style weapon known as a “Pumpkin Blaster.”

Half Moon Bay can make all the exaggerated claims they want, but Manteca is the true Pumpkin Capital and it has its own festival to match.

Almost 8 out of every 10 pumpkins sold commercially in California go rumbling out of Manteca on trucks from now to the last week of October.

Fields around Manteca yielded 54,000 tons of pumpkins last year with a gross value of $16.2 million. They virtually will all end up for decorative uses — except those, of course, that are splattered in the street or smashed against targets at Dell’Osso Farms’ Pumpkin Corn Maze.

Pumpkin fun gets underway today at 10 a.m. with a double shot of gourds as both the 30th annual Sunrise Kiwanis Manteca Pumpkin Fair and the 18th annual Dell’Osso Farms Pumpkin Corn Maze open for business simultaneously.

It’s only fitting considering Saturday is the first day of the month of the pumpkins — October.

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Manteca Pumpkin Fair

The two-day event is today and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in downtown Manteca 

The free event offers community and Main Stage entertainment. Playing the Main Stage Saturday are Steel Glass from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., Resident Angels from noon to 1:30 p.m., Threshold from 2 to 3:30 p.m., and Jim Anderson & the Rebels from 4 to 6 p.m..

Sunday’s line-up includes Mike Hammer and the Nails from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Penetrators Groove Band from 1 to 3 p.m., and Latin Sound from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.

More than 45,000 people attended last year’s event making it the biggest two-day party in Manteca.

The Sunrise Kiwanis over the past three decades have generated more than $500,000 for nonprofit groups serving youth, the elderly and the community by staging the fair.

There are more than 150 vendors selling everything from foods and craft items to toys, CDs, and household items.

There are two stages of continuous entertainment, a haunted house, police motorcycle skills competition, a car show in Sunday, plus the Pumpkin Patch Kids Zone in Library Park.

The Pumpkin Patch features pumpkin rolling, pumpkin seed spitting, and pie eating among other contests.

The Pumpkin Fair carnival is being conducted adjacent to the old Best Buy store in The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley at the 120 Bypass and Union Road through Sunday from noon to 10 p.m.

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Dell’Osso Farms Pumpkin Maze

 Question: How far can you lob a mini-pumpkin using a 6-foot barrel with sights?

Answer: About 200 yards.

The Pumpkin Maze at Dell’Osso Farms is back for its 18th annual run starting today and running through Oct. 31. It includes the wildly popular “pumpkin blasters” welded from steel. For $6, you get a bucket of ammo — 12 mini-pumpkins to be exact — that you can fire away at targets that include the standard open mouths on Halloween characters and hanging tires.

People each year have stood in line — sometimes for hours — for a chance to shoot off the blasters.

The pumpkin blasters are a sideshow to the main event — a 25-acre corn maze that is accessible off Interstate 5 at the Mathney Road exit just south of the Highway 120 Bypass interchange.

The Dell’Osso Family first started farming in the Valley in the 1930Õs.  The third generation farm has been growing pumpkins for over 20 years

In addition to the massive corn maze, the month-long event includes a Haunted House, a bucking pumpkin ride, a Haunted Hayride, zip lines, am aerial ropes course, train rides, petting zoo, Pumpkin Blasters, scarecrow ride, free tire climbing pyramid, pony rides spinning pumpkins ride, pumpkin princess and prince activities, gem mining, a free hay ride, a food court, a country store, a free race-car speedway, a Kiddie Land and much more.  

The event also features a 2-acre picnic ground, free parking, great food and lots of areas for the kids to play.  

The maze is open daily until Halloween from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. while some of the attractions such as the zip line and aerial rope course close prior to sundown.

A $16 all-day ticket for adults gets unlimited access to the maze, and haunted house. The all-day cost for kids ages 4 to 8 is $12 while those under 3 are free.

There are also special combo ride and attraction packages plus individual ride prices.

The fastest anyone has ever gotten through the maze was a half hour while the longest takes more than several hours.

Those going in late afternoon are encouraged to take flashlights.

The last entrance to the maze is at 8 p.m.

For more information, go to the website at www.pumpkinmaze.com.