The Funky Pumpkin Project

Oct
23

Let me re-introduce you to Mr. Funky Pumpkin.

We first met Mr. Funky Pumpkin last fall when he had a brief relationship of unknown dimensions with the ill-fated Mr. Pear in one of my personal favorite posts ever, Pear Pressure.
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Back then, Mr. Funky Pumpkin was living large on the porch rail, waiting to be cut into on an exploratory mission to discover what could be inside such a bumpy and bizarre creation. Mr. Funky Pumpkin was a discard from the farmers market, part of our weekly pig feed haul, so we have no idea what the actual produce description would be, but he was too interesting to give to the pigs. I was eager to find out what was inside…..

Oh, yes, I intended to massacre him. And bake him up in a pie!

Only I was so busy with the motherlode of pears I was processing that I never did cut into him. And so Mr. Funky Pumpkin lived on! Or….something. This is how he looked by spring:

I thought I should get rid of him, but– I didn’t. And he sat for AN ENTIRE YEAR on the front porch rail, decaying. By some miracle, all through the winter and the spring and on through the summer and into the fall, through snows and rains and hard winds, not to mention cats, he was never knocked off the porch rail. He sat, stoic…..and slightly creepy.

I don’t know if it was neglect, laziness, or an odd attachment, but after his pie potential passed, I never disposed of him. I just….left him there.

And then before the party, as we were cleaning up the porch, I decided, hey, it’s TIME. Time to LET GO.

And then, oh then! That was when I made THE DISCOVERY.

I have, on several occasions, attempted to dry out gourds and other stuff, with no success. They always end up rotting. Or eaten by chickens. Or dogs. Or knocked down by cats. But as I picked up Mr. Funky Pumpkin to finally dispose of him, I realize he felt incredibly light. I knocked on his exterior shell. The sound was clear and light and hollow. Mr. Funky Pumpkin was completely, fantastically, perfectly DRIED OUT!

And I realized he was a wonderful craft project waiting to happen. Only….what? If you have ideas, I want to hear them!

Because if you leave it to me…..

….well, let’s just say Mr. Funky Pumpkin is getting worried.





Elephant Garlic

Oct
18


If you can get your hands on some elephant garlic, now is the time to plant it. Elephant garlic is like regular garlic–only bigger! (It’s also a little milder, for when you don’t want that heavy-handed garlic assault.)

I got my hands on some elephant garlic when Leslie and Diane came back to show me how to inoculate more shiitake mushroom logs. (More on that in another post.) The universe, I’m telling you! You can always count on it! I gave them some homemade bread, jam, and soap. The universe works best when it’s operating in both directions. Leslie and Diane always enjoy seeing Jack. They are Jack’s former owners. Jack likes to see them, too. When Jack lived with Leslie and Diane, they let him come on the porch and he had all the licorice treats he wanted.

Now Jack has Poky. I figure he thinks that was a fair trade for licorice treats and porch living.

Back to elephant garlic.

Elephant garlic is easy to grow, and you don’t need much of it to get a whole garden of elephant garlic started. Just divide the elephant garlic into cloves then plant each clove an inch or two deep in the soil with the pointy end up. In the spring, each bulb will send up a flower head. If you break the flower off, you can direct the plant’s energy to produce a bigger bulb. (The leaves and flowers are also edible and are considered a delicacy.) You can harvest the bulbs when the tops die down. But don’t eat all of it–or you won’t have any next year!

And you’ll want some to saute with all those shiitake mushrooms…..



October 15, 2010 - The Table Quilt

I got a lot of questions about this quilt after I posted photos of it on my dining room table during the party and also when I used it to cover my display table at Heritage Days. This quilt was given to me by one of our friends here at Chickens in the Road, a...
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October 7, 2010 - Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

I love shiitake mushrooms, but they can be expensive–so I rarely buy them. I never thought about growing my own until Leslie and Diane, Jack’s former owners, brought me a shiitake log when they came to the party. In case you’re new here and don’t know Jack, this is Jack. I meant to get a...
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October 5, 2010 - Lavender-Basil Soap

This soap smells so wonderful, I became immediately enamored with lavender and am planning to make more lavender-based soaps soon. For this recipe, I asked CindyP, who ran the soapmaking demonstration at the party, to include basil since I have all that basil. The recipe Cindy came up with for the party resulted in a...
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