Your pumpkin was not on a claim, right? You didn't have to put on criminal acts to take it? In that case there is no way to track you through the pumpkin.
If you want someone to play with try making a post under Dwarves and Thieves. It is always possible that someone is lonely and looking for a couple of partners.
It's the full moon right now. If there is a lake near you go fishing for plaice which is excellent perception food and will help you see more stuff while you are foraging.
Newer players play quietly and secretly for the most part as you want to avoid being noticed by some bored dick who will kill your little nubbies just for the lulz. There is no law enforcement so they can murder you with impunity. That's one of the draws of the game. You play in a state of terror, since if a boar notices you, let alone some one in steel plate and purple merchants robes you are almost certainly dead and nothing you can do about it.
To avoid boars and bears use a custom client. Almost everyone plays on the easy difficulty by using a client. Heck, when the Dev's played, they used the custom clients too instead of their own default.
There are large numbers of bots playing, who stump around the woods collecting curios or who stand deep in the mines mining patiently and lifelessly like golems. That makes the game much quieter than otherwise. The owners of the bots are either asleep or at school.
There is a lot of silly chest beating that goes on in the forum. Read the how do I guides and ignore most of everything else. It is just noise, and very repetitive noise at that.
Enjoy the crafting. H & H is the best game ever because of the crafting.
Keep your mentory as full as possible, don't eat too much of any one food and imbalance your stats, start alts as soon as you can get spare cone cows and enjoy the game.