Pumpkins!

It is about time I got the pumpkin story up here! This is a saga of volunteerism, ingenuity, and pollination. We put wanted to put taters in the spot where our 2009 punkins had grown, so dumped the seeds and junk after Halloween last year in an odd spot in the yard. Well, they came up!


Steve was pretty excited and we went to this wonderful website called the pumpkin nook to learn about raising our own. We learned that these gals are pretty easy to grow, yet they are very sensitive. Most of the early summer was spent watering and hoping for baby pumpkins. Later, Steve got more serious and made a cover for them. If the female flowers get cold, they die! There were a few large ones that started, but Steve was wanting more.




He finally decided to pollinate the female flowers. And they took off! Here you see a male flower on the left, and on the right a not very old female. The gals open in the morning and that is when they are at their best. So, using a q-tip, Steve touched the inside of one of the very abundant male flowers and tapped the pollen into the female blossom. If he was fortunate, the baby pumpkin on the end of stem grew into an orange ball!


We harvested these ones first. Almost at the start of September! We knew we had some great jack o lanterns!


As the weather chilled, we diligently covered and uncovered the girls so they would not get too cold and grow big and strong. Unfortunately, the days just were not warm enough and they stalled.


For some reason this photo-which really is NOT slanted-seems to want to blog off kilter. The littler green pumpkins we ended up tossing as it and three others froze. The bright orange one made 4 cups of puree and the larger one is orange all over now.

And here is Steve with his 12 'girls'. He did have two more, but they went to Beaverton with Tony and Kym. We planned on carving the bigger ones for Halloween, but decided against it. One, we were very busy at the end of October and, two, we did not want to have someone come and smash our hard work while the house was empty over the holiday. So, he plans on carving some for Thanksgiving! It should be fun, we hope it doesn't snow!

Just a few photos from our visit with Mum-

Mum got to relax with Moses, visit the horses next door and go up to the Mountains with Jon. Next time she visits, we'll take her shooting! (Maybe!) And we'll hope the weather is better. The mountain visit was pretty much the prettiest day she was here..and it didn't stay pretty very long!

The wedding was ages ago and I really need to get a bit up about it! It was so neat having mum come down and visit. We had not seen her in ever so long and it was special to actually get to hug her for a change! The weather was pretty frightful for most of her visit, so on the drive to the coast it was fun to stop in Arlington and photograph the ducks. Actually, Jon took most of the duck pictures! The drive to the coast was hectic, rain on the freeway and a novice city driver was interesting, but only a foreshadow of what was to come!

(a view from a car window..)

There are many thoughts that come to mind when you think of a big project. One quote by J. Heywood is particularly apt, “Many hands make light work.” There are so many people who helped with the wedding. Roxanne and her two, Flett’s, Pam W, Jacit, Karla B, Teressa S, Dr. T, Doug, Scott, Tex, and the list goes on! And it really did help make the work lighter.

I think the most amusing thing happened after the wedding, though. We had bunches of flowers left over and as it was Halloween, we decided to give some away. We had a rental house, so we didn’t get many trick or treaters. However, the ones who did visit received chocolate and the girls got roses. Well, one of the guys got one, too. He was adorable. A group of Alice in Wonderland characters came by to visit and the Mad Hatter wanted a rose. When I gave him one his response was, “I got a rose!” followed by “I love you!!!

(a visit to the creamery was a must-I got some adorable Tillamook cheddar earrings--metal, not cheese!--and we had a yummy lunch!)

On the way back to EO, the weather was truly horrid. Jon drove thru rain, bumper to bumper traffic, and wind. We barely got mom to the airport in time! The rest of the ride back was fairly uneventful and when we got back home~it was shirt sleeve weather! We were thankful we had two cars, Steve drove the one with his parents and Jon drove my Escort.