There's probably a reason this man used an 800-pound pumpkin as a kayak

Just kidding, there’s definitely a reason Todd Sandstrum of Easton, Massachusetts, decided to carve a person-sized hole in an 817-pound pumpkin and then proceed to sit inside of it with a kayaking paddle and then get it in the Taunton River and then row in the water like the pumpkin was a kayak. That reason, according to the Easton Enterprise-News was: raising awareness about agriculture! Okay!

“I was able to get across the true message of farming,” Sandstrum told the Enterprise-News. “It’s about getting kids in the dirt and getting people to buy local and support local agriculture.”

Sandstrum runs the South Shore Great Pumpkin Challenge, an event for schools to grow a pumpkin, and that presumably has something to do with the fact that Sandstrum sought to lug an 800-pound pumpkin into a river and then sit in it and then row for 3.5 miles.

A Guinness World Record for “longest journey in a pumpkin boat” was apparently at stake, which may or may not be a joke and if it is a joke, you win this round, Easton Enterprise-News. Regardless, Sandstrum did the thing, but not without some difficulties. He struggled to get going, moving less than 100 yards in the first hour-and-a-half. Kayak? More like kay-nope!

But he got going eventually and that’s very nice.

Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.