More
Than A Pie or Jack-O-Lantern:
Let’s
Talk Pumpkins
Whether it’s before, during or after
Halloween, pumpkins are versatile and have many different uses.
While it will always be traditional to
bake a pumpkin pie and carve out a pumpkin in order to place a candle inside to
light up the spooky Jack-O-lantern, the lowly pumpkin has too many uses to stop
there.
Here are suggestions to make your
holiday more ‘pumpkiny’.
If
your kids or even people in nursing or special care homes want to stick with
having Jack-O-Lanterns, cut down on the mess and possibility of injury by
getting creative. Let them draw the faces on the pumpkins or use white glue or
even tacks to decorate the faces with the shapes, sizes and colours your
provide. If you still want to carve a face, use battery powered candles instead
of real ones.
·
Mix
the pumpkins with gourds and fall foliage to make a table center piece or to
decorate a hall table runner. You may choose a larger pumpkin for the
centerpiece surrounded by various gourds intermixed with fall branches or
foliage tied together with a fall themed ribbon. Fill and add a bowl full of
apples on each side of the pumpkin and your theme will pop even more with
colour.
·
Add
a flare of fall to your place settings. Whether it is for a private dinner
party or a wedding, small pumpkins with the addition of a name printed right on
the pumpkin, or with a toothpick stuck into the pumpkin with the name attached
to the toothpick, they add a touch of fall to the table.
·
Get
two or three small pumpkins and gourds (depending on how many kids you have).
On a nature walk pick up things such as fallen leaves, tree bark, pine cones, thin
sticks and maybe even pick up some corn husks. Purchase several different fall
colour themed paints. Put plastic or a sheet over your table to protect it. Cut
the pumpkins and gourds into various pieces of variable sizes. Put the paint in
shallow dishes. Give the kids a blank canvas and let them each create a fall
scene by dipping the items in different paints to make designs and using the
twigs to paint with. You can proudly display their creations in a grouping on a
wall. Have them ‘sign’ their paintings with a hand print and be sure to write
the date on the back.
·
If
you are hosting a Halloween party, use a pumpkin or two to hold the ice. Remove
the insides of the pumpkin, add a plastic bag and store your ice – complete
with a cover!
·
Draw
black eyes on a pumpkin and cover it with a white sheet with the holes cut out
for the eyes and you have a ‘ghost pumpkin’ decoration.
·
Use
strips of old rags with some glue to hold them in place, again cutting out the
black eye holes and you have a ‘mummy pumpkin’ decoration.
·
Looking
for a kids Halloween Party game? Try pumpkin bowling. Paint 5-10 2 Litre
plastic soda or water bottles white, drawing two eyes and an oval elongated
mouth on the face. (Tip – Save time and fill them with white stuffing or cotton
balls). Try to find smaller pumpkins that are uniform in size to use as bowling
balls. Fetch some score cards and let the games begin!
Heather
Stone of Sackville, N.B., went to a fall festival years ago where participants
carved the pulp out of giant pumpkins. In their individual pumpkins, they had a
race on the water in the vessels that actually floated.
A
preschool teacher from Saint John, N.B., Karisma Page, sometimes hollows out a
pumpkin and uses it to make a Halloween themed volcano for her students.
After Halloween
When the spooky time is over, give your
pumpkin a continued use with some of these ideas:
Think
bird feeders! Cut off the top part of the pumpkin to make it shallower for the
birds to easily reach inside. Add their favourite birdseed and treat them to
some pumpkin seeds too.
·
Use
pumpkins as fall planters for your fall flowers, including colourful mums, to
decorate your doorstep or porch.
·
Trim
down your existing centerpiece to fall foliage with the empty pumpkin as the
vase. (Tip – Place a cutting board or other protection under the pumpkin vase
to avoid moisture damage to your table)
Take a walk in the woods and leave your leftover pumpkins for the wildlife to enjoy.
·
If
no longer using it, remember to add your pumpkin to the compost bin instead of
sending it to the landfill.
·
Your
local zoo may appreciate a donation of left over pumpkins as a treat for their
animal residents.
·
Save
some of the unroasted seeds and store them in a cool, dry place over the
winter. In the spring, start growing your own pumpkins!
Don’t forget your
pets
Posted
on the site ‘Bella and Duke’, Jude McCoy
reminds us that pumpkins and their seeds are healthy nutritional supplements
for our dogs and cats.
· Roasted
pumpkin seeds are good for your dogs and cats too!
· Slice
the seeds into manageable bite size pieces that fit your pet after being
roasted.
· Seeds
can also be ground into a powder and served over their food as a special
nutritional bonus.
· Remember
to chop up the pumpkin pulp into bite size pieces as it can be difficult to
swallow due to its stringy nature.
· Pumpkin
insides and seeds are a great source of zinc, fiber, among others.
· You
can also simmer the raw pumpkin pulp on the stove. It will boil down so you may
need to add water during this process. When the pulp is well combined and
boiled down to about half, it can be stored in an air-tight container in the
refrigerator for about 2 weeks.
· Pumpkin
pulp is also a natural remedy for occasional loose stools.
Tradition is okay
too
Even if you decide to go with the
classic custom of picking out pumpkins with your family and then carving them
together, that is certainly okay too.
All the time spent away from a screen in
order to spend family time together can only strengthen the bonds between you
and make lasting memories.
