Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere!

I've been having fun reading about pumpkins and squash lately. Here are a few things I've learned you can do with them. Ok, I already know about most of it, but these are some of the more eye-catching web pages I've seen.

Carve a jack-o-lantern in your favorite silly, scary, using nifty tools and a basic template
or get more involved with specialty carving techniques
A friend carved this one for us early in the season:


Underwater Pumpkin Carving - yes, you really can carve a pumpkin under water!

Paint fun faces or designs on them, sometimes with a 4-H club

Make lots of delicious treats with the flesh and the seeds.
Like pie, custard, muffins, waffles, cheesecake and about half a dozen more just on the linked page! This applies to both pumpkins and squashes - and with squashes' slightly varying flavors, you can experiment with any recipe for subtle taste changes.

Roasting squash seeds: I like to cut open small squashes of two or three different kinds and roast all the seeds the same way, then compare their flavors. My favorite so far is Delicata seeds, which is also my favorite squash for a quick, microwaved treat.

You can take stop-action footage of a carved pumpkin wilting. Or you can just look at a video in a stock footage collection.

And here are some of my personal favorites:

You can visit a pumpkin patch and let fly on a pumkpin launcher


and then watch it zip over the terrain -or pond- as far as you can make it go!















And of course, you can spend time with your family choosing just the right pumpkin to become the canvas for your own artwork. Visiting a pumpkin patch with a hayride and other family activities is one of the best ways to spend a weekend afternoon!