The Great Pumpkin Roll wasn't just for kids. Saline resident Eric Muir, right, and Ypsilanti resident John Hackmann run down the hill with the remains of their pumpkins at Mill Pond Park.

Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com

Call it the Great Pumpkin Roll hat trick. Cathy Harmon managed to kick her pumpkin down the tall hill at Saline's Mill Pond Park today, stay upright on the wet grass (a feat not accomplished by many younger participants) and not spill a drop of her coffee.

Such deftness requires plenty of practice. Harmon and her family have been getting it for the last four or five years at Saline's Great Pumpkin Roll, which gives children and adults one last hurrah with their Halloween pumpkins.

This morning, kids and grownups raced their jack-o'-lanterns down the hill, flung them from a homemade slingshot, and finally, plunked them in a compost truck provided by Waste Management.

“We actually do compost at home,” Harmon said, but her family keeps coming back “because it’s a riot. And the cider and doughnuts help too.”

This was the seventh year for the event.

“This way, they don’t just end up in the garbage,” Sunshine Lambert, supervisor of Saline Parks and Recreation, said. Parks and Rec partners with Waste Management to provide the Great Pumpkin Roll every year. As many as 100 people participate every year, Lambert said.

After the race, kids could take their pumpkins, or what was left of them, and fling them toward the trees using a homemade pumpkin slingshot. The slingshot is made from recycled materials: Stretchy gym bands connect to a basketball that’s cut in half, which provided the cradle for the pumpkins as participants flung them toward the trees in the chilly, overcast morning.