Another of the reasons why we love this time of year:

Because we can do this:

Woo hoo!! Punkins!!

This is E’s. It’s a cauldron, with a moon. The moon and the fire under the cauldron are not fully cut out. We just thinned the punkin out. I think tomorrow we’re going to add a witch standing next the cauldron, because as Beloved pointed out tonight, the cauldron sort of looks like a cup of coffee. Please don’t tell E. She’d be affronted.

This is J’s kitty cat. She wanted to do a profile of a full cat-body, arching its back, but it was just too detailed. This is also the first punkin she carved herself. I was proud of her.

And now, mine.

It’s Pumpkin Pie.

Wanna see?

 

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Carving felt like more work than usual this year.  Things were MESSY!!  We got our pumpkins at Whole Foods, and when I realized that Stop & Shop was closed, that Trader Joe’s didn’t seem to have pumpkins this year, and that I really wasn’t up for a ride to a pumpkin farm (like last year?  Or the year before?) – leaving me with Whole Foods as the only option, I braced myself for spending $100 on pumpkins.

When we got there, they were all HUGE. Just gigantic.  So I amended my expected price to $200.

Then (after I picked my large, but reasonable, pumpkin) I saw the sign – all pumpkins $7.99.

So the girls chose pumpkins bigger than their bodies.

Turns out, not such a wise choice.

Those pumpkins were 6 inches thick!!  Mine was pretty normal, and not hard to carve.  I was done inside of 10 minutes.  But J’s pumpkin was – without exaggeration – 4 inches thick in some place.  Which is tough for a kid who’s doing her own pumpkin for the first time.

When we were done, the floor was covered in pumpkin guts, the chairs were sticky, and the newspaper we’d put down on the table was sodden and ripped.

It’s okay now, though.  And the pumpkins look great.

Beloved hasn’t done his yet.  He spent the time getting his costume ready for Wednesday.  He works in a children’s book store, and they are dressing up.  He’s being Jack Punkinhead from the Oz books.  He looks great in his costume, but I fear he’ll scare the children.

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Why I love this time of year

The urban autumn is different than the rural one I grew up with – despite the relatively close geographical location. I found the same thing in the winter – when I was growing up, I had to deal with snow plows and roads that could or could not be driven on. I found upon living in/near Boston that the more important upkeep was that of the sidewalks. Wow. Icey sidewalks suck. Who knew?

Now, again, it’s the sidewalks:

Of course, we have trees. Or else, where would the leaves fall from?

But these have street lights, bus signs, and mail boxes. Unlike those of my childhood:

I kind of like the city ones better.

Of course, my kids like the other kind better, and wish they could move to that sort of town.

Isn’t that just the way of it?

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