Pumpkins, and more

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, which set me thinking to all sorts of things. Rather than give the usual list of things I'm thankful for, or a lecture on why we should be thankful for our blessings every day (which I am, by the way), I thought I'd do something different.

While the season has changed from summer to fall, I think the time around Thanksgiving is when we can definitely see that winter is coming. I know Americans have a later thanksgiving, and by then winter is definitely more upon us.

I wanted to blog about pumpkins.

On our dog walk today, my husband and dogs and I walked past the local pumpkin patch. What a business they have! Over the years they have changed their marketing. When my kids were little they were running a small day trip for preschoolers and primary students - a tour of a pumpkin patch, a hay ride, and a petting zoo, and at the end the children went into the field and got a pumpkin. Let me tell you, for the price of the admission, that was a pretty expensive pumpkin, for the size of what a 6 year old would take home. They had to pick it and carry it out of the field and to the parking area.

Now, they have a corn maze, a small store for honey and other "farm" products, crafts for sale, and more. They also don't only run it during school days, it is every day. Today is Thanksgiving Day, and the place was very busy.

Which brings me to my topic of pumpkins.

Here in Canada, this was Thanksgiving weekend, when so many families want pumpkin pie. The idea here would be that we gut the pumpkin, or whatever you call it when you scrape the innards out, and then it would have to sit for 3 weeks before you use the shell for Halloween, if you do that kind of thing. Actually, I've only used a real pumpkin once for pies, I've always used canned pumpkin. That aside, I can't imagine having a pumpking shell around for 3 weeks waiting for Haloween. Wouldn't it get kinda stinky and gross?

For Americans, do you do the Jack O Lantern thing with your pumpkins, and save the guts for your pies to use on your Thanksgiving, which is about four weeks after Halloween. So it's the other way around. Does it last until pie making time?

Or you can do what I have done for the last dozen years. Buy the pie at the supermarket, and hang a rubber spider by the door. All problems solved.