Babies!

PUMPKIN BABY

Every evening I have this routine.  I fix supper, wash the dishes, then go outside.  I might have a load of clothes to gather off the line.  I almost always need to give the tomatoes a drink.  But best is always last.  Before coming to the house, I always walk the pumpkin patch.  I look at their  strange vines that only grow in an easterly up hill direction or straight north and south.  I look for bugs.  And lately, since we have had blossoms for a week now, I look for babies.

This evening had me dashing up to the house.  Jack was piling up brush to be burned (someday when we aren't in a ban) and I told him to guess  what I found. He guessed a horn worm.  Then he guessed correctly and I made him come and see.  He said I was as bad as Isabella, but I was just that excited.  He sent me to the house for the camera.  I know, I know.  Who gets this excited over a pumpkin?  But it isn't just any pumpkin.  I brought the tomatoes with me when we moved. We planted some grass in bare spots.  I also brought the cucs and peppers.  But these?  These were planted and watered and transplanted and fertigated, the whole nine yards, right here. We did also find squash bug eggs that will have to be dealt with tomorrow.  And there was a mysterious and beautiful and dangerous-looking red beetle.

TINY BIRDHOUSE OR BOTTLE GOURD

Those don't matter though.  Today, it just matters that there are pumpkin babies and gourd babies, some as small peas and some already as big as ping pong balls.  There are about 150 plants out there, all blooming.  Today we only found perhaps 10 or fifteen tiny bulges hiding beneath the blossoms, but I bet there are more to come.