Thanksgiving... When Turkeys Hide

                Turkeys are Going into Hiding.

                It must be Thanksgiving again.
I saw this funny sign yesterday, and it made me think of all that must go thruogh a Turkey's mind in the weeks coming up to Thanksgiving. (And Then I stopped, and looked carefully at the rest of the sign, which featured the Hash House Thanksgiving Dinner menu... The Hash House is just twisted enought to actually possibly serve Ostrich... But they are sticking with Turkey this time.)

Thanksgiving is a time when we are supposed to be thankful for all the wonderful blessings in our lives. Not many Turkeys make it through unharmed, and only those very creative ones can be thankful that they outsmarted the Pilgrim and did not become dinner.

Sure, we all have various traditions that seem to revolve around Thanksgiving. Some celebrate just the fact that they get to spend it with people they have not seen in ages. Some are thrilled they get a four-day weekend from work. Some spend as much time and energy avoiding their family get togethers as some do trying to get those avoiding it to join them. There are so many things connected with Thanksgiving I could choose to write about. In fact I have written about one of my Favorite Thanksgivings already. You can read that one here.

This year, I want to focus on what it takes to survive, as a Turkey in the season when they are so valuable. I am sure that in the early days, it was not so hard for a Turkey, since they were pretty much wild, and it was purely luck and fate that determined if they became dinner, or if they remained to live another season. Once they became caged, fenced or otherwise contained, it made escaping the platter a bit more of a challenge.

Of Course there is the Classic try to get another farm animal to be the intended target...

Or a Turkey could attempt to wear a disguise....
















There are numerous ways Turkeys have managed to survive Thanksgiving over the years.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to get really creative with my fence in a very large apartment complex where I happened to live and also work... To say I took advantage of my position and used the fence for my own joy is a bit of an understatement. But in all fairness, (and much to The Owner's Chagrin) all the tenants loved the fun I added.

My first Thanksgiving in that place, this is what I created:





Yup! An Acme Instant Cow Disguise Kit... Complete with a bucket of Cow Paint.

The next year, not liking to repeat the same thing twice, this was my creation:





This time it was an ACME Instant Pumpkin Disguise Kit.
Yup! You probably noticed the Confuzzled Pilgrim peeking over the fence in each, trying to figure out how and where his Thanksgiving dinner disappeared to.

As You enter into this Thanksgiving week, may you successfully avoid any hazards that you wish to not be part of. May you also find plenty to be Thankful for. If you should decide you need help in either creating a disguise, or in avoiding the family... or even if you just want help in finding something to be thankful for. I am always willing to help. I consider myself a master of all the above.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

The Great Pumpkin

The Great Pumpkin
It is That time of year... The time when the quest for the absolute best pumpkin becomes The Most Important thing on your list of things to do.
It is funny how most of the year, we hardly even think about pumpkins, but once Fall rolls around, they begin to have at least a trickling effect of appearing in our lives. Once October is in full-swing, they are slightly more noticeable everywhere we go. Once the third week of October comes around, we suddenly realize how dire the need is to suddenly go and find that all-mighty, all-perfect pumpkin for Halloween. Only one week remaining until Halloween, and we have not yet gotten that perfect pumpkin!

We see beautiful pumpkins all around us. Every neighbor, every business, and every other thing we look at has a great pumpkin on display. Some are carved, some are painted, some are just plain. But they all have their great pumpkin on display for the world to see, yet we notice we still do not even have one. Oh, the horror! You notice you are The Only One without a pumpkin, and it is less than a week before Halloween! How could this have happened?  You suddenly feel the need to go and remedy this problem. But in the dire need to not make it look as if you just rushed out at the last second to get yours, Now the Quest for The Ultimate Great Pumpkin is more important than ever!

You've got to suddenly come up with one that when the rest of the world sees it, they will Know you did not forget, but rather waited until the right moment to allow it to be seen. They will know without a doubt that you chose to wait, so it would not make theirs look so puny for the weeks prior. They will know you had compassion, and wanted them to at least be able to think theirs was The Greatest for a brief period of time. Because the moment yours appears, Theirs will forever be no longer noticed. es, That is how you need to play it. Play it as though you really wanted them to have the spotlight for at least a week or two prior to revealing your Greatest-of-all-pumpkins ever displayed.

But... That still leaves you needing to suddenly figure out how to actually suddenly come up with such a magnificent Pumpkin. Because, if after all that waiting, they see you only put a less-than wonderful pumpkin on display, they will know you actually forgot, and had to rush to buy whatever was left at the pumpkin patch... or worse, At the corner market! ~Gasp! The Horror! Could you imagine even showing your face after such a pathetic attempt?

So, you have a few options:
You can go to the local Pumpkin Patch and hunt all over the fields to find the perfect one that all the other thousands of people tromping those same fields have somehow missed.(If you live in a region that happens to actually grow pumpkins!)

Here is a good reason why waiting so long to go to a Pumpkin patch is not a good idea. See those crowds? Yipes! Sadly with so many people crowding the local pumpkin patch, The Best Pumpkin you might find is the one you can poke your face through to have your picture taken with "The Perfect Pumpkin"... Sigh~ So Much for The local, and crowded Pumpkin Patch, huh? (yes, that is Me in such a pumpkin...)

You can choose to go to a less-populated, less-crowded Pumpkin Patch (which happens to be an hour's drive away...)
Then once you get there, Run freely all over miles and miles of open fields of Pumpkins. Wow, you think, This Is The Greatest! I Could easily go hunting forever here, and find The Greatest Pumpkin! Oh, The Excitement!
(This is a picture of Aly... One of "My Kids" I had the pleasure of having in my life for many wonderful years.)

While searching and hunting, you might stumble upon a seemingly great pumpkin... Only to discover it has already been carved! Oh, The nerve, huh? The crew at this pumpkin farm actually carved the greatest pumpkin... and left it here as a teaser! It really was funny, since we found it from the back-side, then came around to the front to see the face carved in it. So, I placed my hat on it, and lay on the ground behind it for a funny picture!



Sigh~ It seems we waited too long to find ourselves The Greatest Pumpkin at a pumpkin patch....
So, that leaves us with a few other choices...in our desperate search to find the Ultimate Great Pumpkin this close to Halloween:

You can go to where someone has trucked-in a bunch of Pumpkins, a few hay-bales, and made a make-believe pumpkin patch. (Odds are the best ones have already been grabbed-up by the employees for their own homes.)
Or you can choose to go to the corner market, and hope to find something slightly worth the effort of even leaving home in the first place. (Odds are If you buy a pumpkin from a store, it will look just about the same as every other pumpkin sold in that entire community, since they are all trucked-in from the same source.)

Having not planned ahead enough to plant a garden and actually grow your very own Great Pumpkin, and not finding anything satisfactory in any of the other available places, this leaves you with only one option:

What IS That Option, You Ask? Simple!
You MUST BUILD Your Very Own Great Pumpkin! (What?? What Do you Mean Build A Great Pumpkin??)

That Is Exactly What I Did! I Built One! Yup! Over 300-pounds, almost three-feet high, Orange!
My creative mind came up with The perfect way to build The Great Pumpkin! Build it with wood, and instead of nails, use glue, so you can still carve it.

I made a few trips to local housing construction sites, and gathered all the scarp wood they pile for people to take away for free. In no time, I had the materials I needed. (I just needed to go to the hardware store and buy the glue, some paint, and I was all set!)

I started with a solid wooden block. Then I layered pieces of 2x6 in a semi-circular pattern to create a semi-round shape, hollow in the center. Then I would glue the next layer in a pattern making sure none of the seams overlapped to give it strength. I continued this process until I had a complete (but very rough) pumpkin-shape.

In the photo to the left, you can see the rough-shape of The great Pumpkin in the process of being built. (on the floor... lower right of picture.) Hehe, Again a picture of Aly is used to show what I need. She happened to be a very important part of my life at the time. The thing she is sitting on happens to be a cat-condo/ scratching-post she and I built together at the same time I was building The Great Pumpkin. She was wearing her Great Pumpkin/ Snoopy Pants, too... Perfectly appropriate! (She chose to sit on the cat post, to illustrate how strong it was, and that even her tough-cat would not be able to destroy it!)



After building the complete, and very roughly-shaped wooden pumpkin, that is when The Real fun began! The fun of carving it! Now, normally, when someone carves a pumpkin, it is Already shaped as a pumpkin. Plus it happens to usually be soft enough to carve with a simple knife. Carving a wooden pumpkin is just a bit more involved...

To begin, I had to first shape the outside of the wooden pumpkin to look like it was in fact pumpkin-shaped. This was fun! I used my skill-saw, sawzall, and assorted other saws to roughly get it the shape I wanted. Then I used assorted sanders, grinders, etc to make it just the right texture.

After it was shaped mostly how I wanted it, I began the process of actually carving it like you would a regular pumpkin. But since I would be literally carving in 6-inch-thick wooden walls, I needed to get more than just a simple knife to carve with. Bring out The really Big Sawzall Blades! Oh yeah!

Then, some orange paint, and Viola! The Great Pumpkin!

We all have different ideas and can find joy in so many varieties of pumpkins. Some like really BIG Pumpkins. Some like really small Pumpkins. Some like carved, some like to paint, draw or use other decorations. Whatever your idea of The Greatest Pumpkin is, I Hope You find it, create it, and enjoy it this Halloween! I leave you with one more pumpkin...

This Little fella Is My Absolute Favorite This Year! Meet Jack... :)

To me, This little Ducky-Pumpkin IS THE GREATEST PUMPKIN. Why?:
Because a wonderful friend just gave this one to me... Just in time to celebrate this season of pumpkins. And It happens to go very nicely with all the rubber ducks I collect. (or, rather it would be more appropriate to state that the Ducks Collect Me, Not I collect them!)
(Thank you, Frankie for Giving Me this One!... The Great Pumpkin!)


Happy Fall, Happy Harvest, Happy Halloween! What ever is your reason to have a Great Pumpkin... Enjoy it! ~=:-)