If you read my last blog you will remember I was in the process of preparing to educate a group of 90 year old’s about the science of pumpkin farming. Since I am back at writing a blog again this week you can assume I survived that adventure. 🙂

My 90 year old audience was very attentive and seemed to enjoy my presentation. I think they especially enjoyed following along as I described the pumpkin growing life cycle that I had printed on a huge sheet of cardboard.

There weren’t a lot of questions. I think they were in a hurry to get to the lunch that was going to be served at the completion of my talk.

One elderly lady composed a reading where she compared all of us to pumpkins and proceeded to describe how God had to open each one of us up. Then he would scrape all the gunk from inside of us to make us worthy. Throughout the reading she quoted Bible verses that supported her thoughts.

I bet she was ‘teacher’s pet’ back in her days in the old country school. I know she was mine by the time she had finished that reading. 🙂

When the presentation ended everyone made a dash for the lunch table which contained plates of tasty bars covered with cool whip.  Of course you can guess what kind of bars they were can’t you? Yup, pumpkin bars!

I had to rest that evening because my pumpkin education was just half done. Remember the next morning at 9:00 am I was scheduled to continue pumpkin education with preschool/kindergarten children from the Herman-Norcross elementary school.

So I tried to rest, however, it was difficult as vision of ‘lesson plans’ kept dancing in my head! What activities would be suitable for those little munchkins?

The next day dawned with blue skies and cold temperatures. In fact if I had to identify our 14 little visitors now I would not be able to. As they bounced off the bus they were bundled from head to toe with heavy coats, mittens, winter hats of all styles and colors. All that was visible were their wide eyes, little noses and smiles revealing missing teeth here and there.

After introductions we visited the pumpkins displayed on our lawn and looked at the different varieties. Then we headed over to the outside row of pumpkins where the deer had decided it was the a la carte line.

After viewing the destruction the deer had caused we also talked about other pumpkin enemies such as cucumber beetles, 13 lined ground squirrels and Richardson ground squirrels.

Next we re-enacted the pumpkin growing process. Every child got six pumpkin seeds and practiced planting them. We decided if the weather stayed warm we would have ripe pumpkins sometime in February. No one’s holding their breath on that one. 🙂

After talking about the germinating seeds, tiny plants growing larger and vining out while producing male and female flowers we finally got to our mature pumpkins we had just observed for sale on our lawn. The life cycle discussion was complete!

Then began the ‘who can find the longest pumpkin vine’ contest. I encouraged the children to pull on the vines and gently remove them from where they were attached to the soil being careful not to break them. The child with the longest vine would win a valuable prize….one Oreo cookie! There’s nothing cheap about this pumpkin patch tour guide! 🙂

The winner produced a 33 foot vine which she dragged onto the lawn. Looking back on the activity now I wish I would have allowed them a little more vine gathering time. I believe fifteen minutes more of those little munchkins gathering up pumpkin vines would have saved me a lot of work later on this fall when I would need to gather them in a pile and burn them.

We then toured pumpkin garden #2 where I urged the children to keep their eyes open for small pumpkins we might have missed during the harvesting. A few small pumpkins were discovered but not nearly as many as I had hoped for.

I then performed a demonstration that I guarantee has never been performed in any other pumpkin patch tour in the world. Last summer I was trapping Richardson ground squirrels in the middle of our regular garden. They were destroying our peas and carrots.

I accidently caught a skunk in the trap which required that I send it to skunk heaven as quickly as possible. As you all know skunks don’t go to skunk heaven without raising a big stink.

But I learned years ago how to control that atrocious smell. Fill a wheel barrel with rich black soil, plug your nose and dump the wheel barrel of dirt on top of the stinking carcass. The smell is instantly gone!

So that’s what I did last summer. The skunk with the trap still attached lay under a pile of garden soil until our visiting munchkins arrived last week. So for a little extra curricular activity I decided to remove the trapped skunk from his temporary earthen grave. The children would never quit talking about it I thought.

I grabbed the exposed trap stake and gave it a jerk expecting to pull up a partially decomposed skunk along with the trap. To my surprise the trap popped to the surface with nothing attached. I’m not sure who was more disappointed myself or the onlookers.

I’m not sure what happened to the skunk remains and I don’t plan on going in search of them. 🙂

Finally the great pumpkin search took place. Previously I had hidden fourteen pumpkins in the tall grass next to the pumpkin patch. The children were urged to go in search of a pumpkin and when they found it they could keep it.

The search was successful as all the children discovered an orange orb. Except for the one white pumpkin I included with the others. When a little girl discovered it I thought she would be ecstatic because it of its unusual color. She wasn’t! She wanted the traditional orange one.

So a trade was made and she left with an orange pumpkin just like her classmates.

My favorite activity was inviting the children and adults into our house, dirty shoes and all, and letting them sit on our living room carpet while I read them “The Little Green Pumpkin” from my book “Holiday Adventures for Kids”.

As I read everyone else was munching on Oreo cookies. A perfect ending to a perfectly sweet day! 🙂

So ended my strangest back to back teaching assignment. I refer to it as the “cradle to grave” experience. The munchkins were closest to the cradle while the ninety year old’s were closer to the grave. Although it’s my wish that the ninety year old’s all become centurions before they plan on leaving us. 🙂

Until next time.