We had our first frost on Monday morning, which was nearly three weeks later than the average date of October 10. It was not a hard freeze, but there definitely was frost on the pumpkins. A few of them are too green, but I brought in three that are far enough along to believe they will finish ripening on the patio.
That pumpkin vine was a volunteer that came up from a seed I had thrown out with last year's garbage. It grew like crazy, took over about a third of the garden, and blessed us with 20 big neck pumpkins. The vine is black and dead now, so if I can find homes for the last five pumpkins we will be out of business. Meanwhile, we are eating lots of things made with pumpkin. We've had pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin bars. Tonight's dessert is Pumpkin Parfait--a concoction made of a cooked and cooled pumpkin mixture with meringue and cool whip folded in to make it fluffy.
Seeing frost on the pumpkins reminded me of the way one of our little boys recited that familiar line from James Whitcomb Riley's poem--"the frost is on the pumpkin and fadder's in the shop." The frost never ceases to come no matter how many years go by, but fodder and shocks are terms which no longer have meaning to most children.
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