Once upon a time, there was a fundraiser called "The Pumpkin Patch" at a local church. I spoke to the pastor, and learned it was a joint fundraiser both for that church, and for the Native American tribe in either Arizona or New Mexico who had grown the pumpkins and shipped them across the country by truck. Each day, the church would call the tribe, report how much money they made that day, and the tribe would know they'd get half. I was surprised that they trucked pumpkins all this way and still made a profit! But after conferring with the pastor, who assured me that it was, indeed, a Sincere Pumpkin Patch, I decided to buy a pumpkin there. We got a good, big one - it was probably 16-18 inches high, and 14 inches across - a good armful of pumpkin.

Mind you, we buy a pumpkin each year mentally referring to it as "the Squirrel Treat" and set it out on the front stairs leading up to the porch, a couple weeks before Halloween. This year, as of Halloween, our pumpkin was un-nibbled, but there were carved jack-o-lanterns to nibble in the neighborhood.

Then, before Thanksgiving, the nibbles appeared. A hole was chewed into the pumpkin, and the suirrel would sit inside, poking her head out every few seconds to make sure it was still safe. Then the squirrel started little nibbles on the outside, once all the seeds were gone inside.

Last week, the day after Thanksgiving, Paul suggested we moved the now-slightly-less-attractive pumpkin to the back yard. I was a little concerned the squirrels wouldn't find it ...

Pictures from today, I needn't have worried.


Squirrell makes a small mark in the orange outer flesh


Still working, you can see the mark is now much bigger


Now you can see the large area, and how, um ... pudgy ... she has gotten!