pumpkins – An Unorthodox Halloween

2019 Recap

2019 was an extremely COLD Halloween. But both the party and Halloween night did not disappoint.

We’ve long loved to grow our own pumpkins here. Typically we get a dozen or two out of our own garden and buy 100 or so. The last few years have been testing out a new variety that seemed to really fit our needs. Cheyenne Bush pumpkins. They kept small plants, good size fruits, could grow in a container, didn’t seem to mind the heat like other varieties, and ripened very quickly. The seeds were devilishly tricky to find, however, but we’d prepared for that, hand pollinating carefully last year, and saving our own seeds.

This year, with the yard in construction for so long, it was the perfect opportunity for the bush pumpkins to shine. We didn’t plant till July. Very short growing season for a pumpkin. In flew the bush pumpkins. Some were just as expected.

But then there were OTHERS. That a spaghetti squash?

And what is THAT?

All seeds were saved from the SAME PUMPKIN.

Going to be an interesting harvest to say the least…but I think I’ve found why the seeds are so darn hard to find. You can’t just save them…

Looking back

First of all, the site is mostly back to working, if not exactly back to where I want it. Some stuff I’m going to have to start over from scratch.

Time for the annual looking back on what worked, what didn’t, and where are we going from here.

The Orchard was finally represented as conceived in 2010. Our third try. Mostly just finding the right sticks to use was the problem.

The straw bales worked as planned, encouraging kids to spread pumpkins around staging areas, creating little groups instead of a solid line.

The illusion of pitch black in the corn tunnel was back, missing in 2014.

Father was fabulous.

No one but me would notice the problems Mother had.

The bridge redesign simplified setup tremendously and held up better than the old design.

Overall, just about a perfect year.

However, what didn’t work?

The small fire pits won’t last a whole night. No pics of this, they were lighting the treat table. Note for future, they aren’t going to work for that plan…

Candles remain problematic at times.

Batteries for the pumpkins were a little disappointing this year. They were of a lesser quality.

Yes. It’s a short list…

And there’s the rub. “The Harvest” theme is now in the books as pretty much where I wanted it…Now what? There are two competing ideas in my head…one makes sense…one is off the wall.

Nothing but pumpkins and some corn stalks.

2010, birth of the Harvest Party.

2010 began with a whirlwind of activity. I was bound and determined to bring Spider Woman (a native american legend) to life with the yard. There was going to be a temple and everything. A slew of items most of the public never saw were created.

Statues for the temple…

Combining with some local myths in a nearby canyon that rock formations were witches held by spider woman until the shaman could turn them to stone, I was interpreting to make some mini versions for the yard as well.

Bundled mummies were in progress.

Then came August…

A storm took out our gazebo, which was going to serve as the frame for the temple, and with it most of the items we’d spent the year working on.

I didn’t want to just do our field of skulls we had done for several years at the time, and was looking for things I could do with the remaining time and budget.

Several things conspired to push me into the Harvest direction.

1st, I had gotten comments at work on my ‘depressing’ wallpaper (pictures of my yard at the time) and stumbled on this picture, soon changing my wallpaper to it, and it bored into my head looking at it every day…how simple…how awesome.

Then other comments from haunters complaining about people in their neighborhood that put up “Nothing but pumpkins and some corn stalks”.

Combined, I set out to make nothing but pumpkins and corn stalks something neat. To this day, 2010 is one of my favorite years.

Halloween in Summer, and Motherfest!

Busy couple weekends here.

First, the kids and I took advantage of the Halloween in Summer festival in Magna.

Good to see so many local artists out there making Halloween items.

(Talia practicing her creepy face)

From Buildup 2015

And so many costumes!

From Buildup 2015

But, back home it was time to get working on Mother.

Unfortunately, I ran out of material fairly quick.

From Buildup 2015

Some quick orders placed, and a review of my schedule going forward with work projects, back to school, and weekends about to be taken up with canning tomatoes, it come down to a now or never situation for finishing the bulk of work on Mother this weekend. So, we declared it Motherfest, and most my time was spent elbow deep in material, working on Mother Friday and Saturday.

By Saturday afternoon, Mother was mostly finished.