The Great Pumpkin Shortage of 2013

Happy Thursday everyone!!!

I hope you're all ready for some "trick r' treating" tonight. Now that my youngest brother is not so young anymore, I get to stay home during this spooky night and await the kids who might ring our door bell. Problem being is that we live on a street with not so many houses on it... so that means not too many kids show up at the front door! And I don't blame them!!! If I were I kid I'd want to go where I can get the biggest bang for all those miles I put on my feet in the cold :) Ahhhh to be a kid again with a pillow case (or two) in hand pilfering all those houses for candy and chips hehe. 

Luckly, our door bell fortunes have increased lately due to some large new housing developments in the area and that equals MORE TRICK OR TREATERS :) What can I say? I just love seeing all the costumes that are donned this special night and handing out candy bars! 

I have it all planned out. The music, the decorations, and the PUMPKIN! Wait... the pumpkin... Well boy do I ever have a story to tell you about pumpkins. 

Usually it's tradition that my brothers and I go out and get our Halloween pumpkins at a nearby local farm. So Sunday arrives, it's nice, not too threatening on the rain side of things... although I can see some scary looking clouds in the distance... So I ring up my brothers to go get our pumpkins. We arrive... no pumpkins... disappointing. We always try to support local businesses first but I guess we'll just have to go to the grocery store... WRONG. No pumpkins at the grocery store... none in the whole metro area!!!! WHAT????? 

So there we are, all crammed into a car with our significant others, brainstorming where on earth we can find a pumpkin... on a Sunday... before everything closes. There's but one last place to try, Lester's Farm. A bit of a trek but we HAVE to have a pumpkin for Halloween! It would be like not having a tree on Christmas!

So off we go to Lester's, we arrive... A MILLION cars! Now if you're like me and think positive, the fact that there are tons of cars spilling out of the parking lot and into the street you'd think "Boy... they must be the only place left to have pumpkins. Thank God we are going to get one"... if you're a pessimist you'd probably think "CRAP! It's probably a free-for-all in there"... think Lord of the Flies...

If you're the pessimist, you were right. I walked in with hope only to see that the crates and pallets that used to hold pumpkins were practically empty, with only the saddest looking pumpkins left... the ones who've been beaten and bruised. Much like how I was feeling in that particular moment. I was totally deflated. My picturesque Sunday with my family had flown the coop. 

I all but gave up when I spot two GINORMOUS pumpkins left at the very end between what used to be pumpkins but now had their guts spilling out onto the ground. 

I make a beeline for what is now our "greenish", warped, yet perfectly funky and weird pumpkin.  

Now it's all over the news. "NO PUMPKINS!" "PUMPKIN SHORTAGE HITS THE AVALON". Literally, radio hosts are asking people to call in on how they plan to cope with this shortage and be creative and carve other things... watermelons, turnip, cantaloupe... you name it. While these substitutions are great solutions if you don't want to miss out on the tradition of craving at Halloween, they're still just not the same as getting up to your elbows in pumpkin slime. 

I know one thing for sure... From now on I'll be getting my pumpkin much earlier and will appreciated it soooooo much more :)

Lastly, I'll leave you with a couple pictures of two very curious pups... They were looking at me as if to say "Mommy, why are you taking pictures of pumpkins???". So I took the opportunity to grab a few snaps of them in the morning light on the front deck :) Now hopefully they'll sit just as well when the doorbell starts ringing!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

PS: Be sure to sign up for my giveaway! Make sure you comment on my giveaway post if you'd like to participate!!!