The Great Pumpkin

You know how sometimes you'll do something out of laziness, but you tell yourself and maybe other people that there was a perfectly legitimate reason for doing it? For example, maybe you don't mow the yard for a few days, but you insist that it's because you get a better workout if the grass is a little higher, or you take off your shoes by the front door instead of taking them to your room, operating under the theory that really you're a preservationist--by saving the shoes those steps, you are lengthening their lives. Maybe you've never done these particular things, but don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

If you're a pro at this like both Matt and I are, then you know that if you participate in this behavior often enough, every once in a while your laziness produces a truly beneficial result. Case in point: our pumpkin patch.

Last Halloween, Matt carved a pumpkin for the house. Now, anyone who visits our house knows that we love to decorate for holidays, but we're not quite so good at the removal of the decorations. My Easter wreath came down in mid-June, we had the Thanksgiving centerpiece on our dining room table for 4 months, and we finally accepted our shortcomings and left half of our Christmas lights up for next year--we figured it would just save time. See what I mean about this laziness thing? We could write a book.

Anyway, sometime in mid-November, we realized that the Halloween pumpkin was getting a little, well, rotten. Matt tucked it under the bush next to our driveway on our way out one day, convincing me, and himself I'm sure, that it would be good for the nearby plants. We forgot all about it until a couple of months ago. The first time Matt went out to clean up in that area, he was quite startled to find pumpkin vines growing everywhere. They have taken over the whole side of the house--some of the leaves are a foot long. Soon, we got a real surprise--right in the middle of our typical little suburban landscaping sat this beauty:

In case you can't tell, this is a very good sized pumpkin--the perfect carving size, in fact. Too bad it's reached its peak in August. I think if we had managed to grow a tree that produced Tootsie Rolls in the front yard we could not have excited Abby more--to have her own pumpkin growing in her VERY OWN YARD is the highlight of her summer. You would think she had tended the thing herself from when it was a wee little seed.

As fun and novel as our pumpkin is, I'm kind of relieved it's the only one. I can just imagine pumpkins piled up the side of our house, spilling onto the driveway, the vines starting to climb the walls. Matt thinks we'll have more next year, so we may have to prepare ourselves. Not that we'll do anything about it--I'm sure there will be an advantage to just leaving the pumpkin patch alone to do its own thing. If there's not, we can always make one up.