Look at the size of my pumpkins!

Last Sunday I decided it was time to harvest our largest pumpkins. Matt had been letting them grow to see how big they could get - I think this is a rather macho thing to do, correct me if I'm wrong, although I did enjoy driving up the hill in the preceeding weeks and being able to spot three orange splodges from a fair distance away, and it must have got the neighbours talking (though that's easily done).

Slumbering giants

With careful manouevring - Matt rolling and me spotting - we managed to move all three across our finca and onto the terrace where Matt had earmarked sites for the largest two.


Pumpkin pixie

Sentinels. All pumpkins in place

I then got out my carving equipment and proceded to prepare the smallest, but still impressive one, for the academia. I'd never carved a pumpkin before - we did turnips one Halloween when I was in the girl guides, which I found quite pathetic, this was much more exciting.

Being sensible and marking where I wanted to cut the lid.

Success!

During the hollowing process - a spoon works best, as I discovered after almost slicing my finger off a couple of times.

The hollowed pumpkin - after much scraping and building up of arm muscles. All ready for the fun part:

Ta daa! The finshed item. Not bad for a first effort I thought.

Not only did I end up with a great, if I may say so, pumpkin lantern, but also with several kilos of flesh that I proceeded to turn into soup and curry, resulting in a very full freezer, and full tummies that evening.

Even after it'd been hollowed out it was still a hefty brute. After some difficulties, I managed to get it down to the academia on Monday morning where I set it up opposite the front door for all to see.

How to earn brownie points from the boss.

Pumpkins here are smaller and green/yellow in colour so my splendid example was remarked upon by all and sundry who passed through the door. In one fell swoop I gained publicity for the academia, was granted status of 'cool teacher' by my pupils, toned my arms and garnered enough food to keep us going for a week or so. Not bad for an afternoon's work.