Day 246
Peter, Peter pumpkin eater had a wife but couldn’t keep her. He put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her, very well.
That is GHASTLY! It’s a Mother Goose nursery rhyme dating back to 1825. I’d, personally, like to know what was wrong with that Peter? Pictures depict his wife living in a huge pumpkin … but why? What was with that?
In any case, horrid nursery rhymes aside, I love pumpkins. Autumn arrives and my thoughts turn to pumpkins! Seriously, they do. When will they start showing up in grocery stores? Is there a pumpkin patch nearby? Can I find a Cinderella one this year?
I start scanning the outside bins sometime in September and as the end of the month nears the pumpkins start showing up. Little round bakers for pies and stews and soups and breads. Big Cinderella ones that are a gorgeous red and that could easily transform into a glorious coach if any of us had a magic wand. There are lumpy green ones and tiny orange ones and big, fat round ones.
Sam’s affiliation with the nursery allows her to get heirloom pumpkins … the pink ones, the warty ones. The unusual ones that are so lovely. They are beautiful specimens of the gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbitus … in non-Latin words meaning a thick-skinned gourd-like squash, typically with orange or yellow flesh, round in nature holding pulp and seeds. Usually used for food and recreation. You know … a pumpkin!
I remember the days when we’d make a big thing about going and picking out our pumpkins. Sometimes we found a pumpkin patch, other times we’d go to the grocery store. But no matter where we got them – they always had to be just “right”. This was not a casual “pick the first fruit” you saw thing. This was the real deal! I always got a fat squatty one … Tim always got a tall one … the kids picked out whatever tickled their fancy that year.
And one special night we’d carve our pumpkins and it was always great fun. Guts and seeds all over. The kids and I would be done with ours and Tim would still be creating a masterpiece. It was the artist in him. Whereas the 3 other pumpkins looked like 6 year olds carved them (regardless of our ages), Tim’s was always a piece of art. Kind of like beauty and the beasts.
Except one year – when I rivaled his pumpkin and carved an E.T. face that was particularly fabulous! (If I do say so myself!)
It’s been awhile since I’ve carved a pumpkin. These days I fancy eating pumpkin bread and looking at my whole pumpkins inside and outside my house until after Thanksgiving. Then they are piled high and the squirrels get a feast!
Some years the squirrels were brazen and they’d start eating the pumpkins I had on display on my front porch. My front porch was always so pretty with a hay bale and mums and pumpkins and gourds … and as we got closer to Halloween the pumpkins that the squirrels chewed holes in would bake in the sun and they’d get black and squishy and horrible looking and I’d leave them just to gross out the trick or treaters! All thanks to the squirrels for their gruesome handiwork!
This year I didn’t go to a pumpkin patch but to the local grocery store … and came home with a few orange ones – big and small and a nice perfectly round one. And in the mix I added a few small ivory ones (they are so pretty) … and one BIG white one. I am hoping the squirrels leave it alone as it is my ghost pumpkin. It sure is a beaut … oooooooh.