A Madness of Pumpkins

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When I was a child (back in the dark ages I admit) I remember having one autumn pumpkin, and that was for carving a jack-o-lantern on Halloween. I don't remember my mother ever festooning the inside of the house with orange squash, nor were there any pumpkins decorating porch or driveway. Times have certainly changed! I give you my daughter's porch as an exhibit! 

Those mums are almost as big as Wren!! They didn't cart all these pumpkins home themselves, by the way. There are pumpkin decorating services! (What I'm wondering is whether the service will also come and take them away?) This makes the two tiny ones I put on my front doorstep this year look a bit sad, but that little pop of orange color is still cheerful.

I debated buying more, and bigger, ones for the front steps, but then did the calculations–not only would I have to carry them from the car, but also back to the trash bins at the end of season. We don't have a big compost pile and I never much like putting a bunch of rotting vegetables in the landfill.

But it's not just Americans that have gone pumpkin mad. I run across ex-pat Brits who will tell me that the British don't do pumpkins, or Halloween, but I beg to differ. Look around anywhere in London, where gourds abound, or at this shot of Tulley's Pumpkin Farm near Gatwick Airport just south of London. Check out their link above--it's atonishing.

Those are some serious pumpkins!

This started me thinking about the economics of the pumpkin craze, and what a boon it must be to farmers, whether here or in the UK. I just read in my Dallas paper that this summer's drought in the Texas Panhandle reduced the pumpkin crop by about a third and the farmers are suffering.

I have to say I do love all the displays, they are so bright and cheerful, and I'm all in for anything that gives our farmers a cash crop. How about it, fellow Reds, do you go all out for the seasonal squash?

LUCY BURDETTE: I love looking at the displays as well! We were so sad this year because the pumpkins did not come up in John's garden. Last year we probably got 20, put a bunch out ourselves and gave the rest to the neighbors. This year we have two tiny mini pumpkins on the dining room table and that’s it. But I think yours are adorable!

JENN McKINLAY: I’m more of fake headstones on the front yard decorator than pumpkins on the porch. When the Hooligans were young, we carved pumpkins and put them out, saving the seeds for roasting, natch. But once they outgrew it, I was over it. The headstones and skeleton come out every year, unless I’m traveling during Halloween. I do love other people’s pumpkin displays, however!

HALLIE EPHRON: My neighborhood goes mad for Halloween, but not so much for pumpkins. It’s more blow-up plastic tarantulas and skeletons sitting on roofs or leaping out of attic windows.

My Jerry was a master pumpkin carver and every year we’d set one that he’d carved in our front window. And I’d wash and roast the seeds that got came out of it. One year I even rescued the pumpkin the day after and made a pie. 

This year I have 2 smallish pumpkins on my front steps, courtesy of my lovely daughter who is now living part time with me. (Lucky me!!) I’m hoping she will opt to carve it as we approach the end of the month.

RHYS BOWEN: My pumpkin carving always left a lot to be desired. Triangle shaped eyes and mouth at best. Since the kids left home I have two ceramic pumpkins I put out with candles in them, but that's about it. We have so few children in my neighborhood that it hardly seems worth decorating.

 

But this year, now that I have my daughter Anne living with me and she is creative and enthusiastic, we may even carve pumpkins and put out a ghost or two.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m a harvest-time/Hallowe’en/Thanksgiving decorator, so I like my pumpkins, mums and gourds. I have several big ones on my porch steps; I like the way they look on the stone, with the last daisies and asters. After Oct 31, I’ll add a few gourds and, if necessary, replace the mums with decorative kales. Happily, I DO have a compost pile, so everything goes back to the soil one way or another.

When my kids were young, of course, we did jack o’lanterns, and sometimes I’d supplement them with uncut (and therefore longer lasting) pie pumpkins. I’ve had many a pumpkin pie in my time, but made fresh from the squash is the most delicious!

DEBS: I love your display, Julia, and now I'm a bit sorry I didn't do my steps as I usually do, alternating pale blue and pale pink pumpkins. I love the weird colors!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ah. Um. No. Nothing. I am more a huge basket of mums person. Should I get a pumpkin? I will never make a pie of it, so maybe I’ll stick with the flowers? I am fond of Halloween but more as an observer. I’m not the Halloween Grinch, I promise!

DEBS: Hank, everyone should have at least one pumpkin, even if only a tiny one for your dining room table! I've put a little one on my coffee table and and also on my dining table, and they make me smile every time I look at them.

How about it, dear REDs? Do you have a plethora of pumpkins? Or do you save the squash for pumpkin pie?

No Regrets? by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: last week Rhys had us talking about books. What we do when we have too many of them and how we make decisions about culling the herd. I’ve also done some “ridding out“ as my friend Yvonne would call it, of clothing and shoes. Already, I wish I could call a few things back that are long gone. We don’t have a lot of call to wear corduroy pants in Key West, but this winter we’re also going on a trip to a very cold portion of Europe. There was a pair of black wide wale corduroys that I hadn’t worn in years. They were ankle length, with a band around the bottom, almost a barrel shape. I wore them often, and I loved them, but I gave them away thinking I wouldn’t have opportunities to wear them again.  But now that it’s too late to summon them back, I miss them!

I also regret recycling my overalls. (See the photo at the top of me with my friend Carolyn.) I was in my late 20s when I moved from Tennessee to Florida to start graduate school. I wore those overalls nonstop which no doubt struck others in the clinical psychology department as peculiar. As I advanced farther along in the program, wearing overalls was less appropriate, and I gave them away. But now I see fashionistas wearing overalls everywhere. I miss that pair! 

I may have talked about this years ago, but I had a plastic bag of my favorite childhood stuffed animals. I collected cats that were covered with rabbit fur. They had names and lives and the games we played saw me and my sister through some unhappy times. In that bag were also several arms and legs from my mother’s Raggedy Ann dolls. Don’t know what happened to the other body parts! However, in Florida, my ex and I had a terrible infestation of roaches who ate the fur off of all those animals. I was finally talked into throwing them away. Now, the kicker…

Our local NPR station is soliciting people to bring unusual collections to their Audacious Live show and tell. They suggest things like a jar of cat whiskers—something unusual with meaning and a story behind it. I am positive that a baggie of bald stuffed animals and doll body parts would make a good conversation piece. However, they are gone and I’m filled with regrets.

How about you reds, any items that you disposed of but now regret? Or do you give things away and never look back? Do you have something 'special' you'd bring to that NPR show and tell?

A Great Month for Reading

 

LUCY BURDETTE: As you can see by the pile in the photo, I’ve had no shortage of books to read over the last few weeks. John has a new hip and is getting along famously, but in those first scary days when I was the sole caregiver, I wanted something soothing and so familiar. I was thrilled to discover the small Jenny Colgan book that serves as a prequel to her Mure series, which I adore. Hank’s book was daytime reading—full of twists and rocket fuel adrenaline, well done Hank! Now I’m finishing the new Ann Cleeves, which is a Matthew Venn book. It’s solid as always and I’m completely buffaloed about who could have killed these people. I’m sure Matthew will figure it out. I also read Ann Patchett’s Whistler for a second time (which I rarely do) because some friends were getting together to discuss it and eat cake. I loved it the second time too—such great depiction of characters. Kristan Higgins is the queen of women’s fiction, writing about four friends whose lives are upended by a terrible accident. 

Now I have to decide what’s next…what are you reading and how do you decide?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ah, mostly it’s the book by the author I get to interview next or a book I have been asked to blurb! It’s fun to have my “job” assign me books–it lets me read some I might not have heard of or chosen. As a result, I’m just beginning Hallie Shepherd’s CALL OFF THE DARK  (a new author for me, and no idea what this will be) and just finishing the brilliant Jason Rekulak’s WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN.  It is so scary I can hardly read it! (And aw, thank you for the kind words about MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER! And it’s already in second printing, yay.) And next on the blurb list..the new LIsa Jewell! So looking forward.  

HALLIE EPHRON: YAY on that second printing, Hank! And YAY on John’s new hip, Roberta!!

I’m not doing a huge amount of book reading right now because I’m in the middle of teaching a 2-week class for the Sisters in Crime Guppies on how to write a compelling protagonist. I’ve broken it into 6 lessons and there’s a full contingent of participants and masses of homework for me to respond to.

When I’m done for the day the last thing I feel like doing is reading.

But queued up next are some books I somehow managed to miss when they came out awhile back. THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB by KarenJoy Fowler (I loved her WIT’S END.) And Elena Ferrante’s MY BRILLIANT FRIEND.

JENN McKINLAY: I’ve been reading mostly for endorsements lately, including the upcoming GIRL FROM IPANEMA by Mia Sosa and Ellie Alexander’s suspense/cozy MURDER MOVES IN. Both are excellent and I highly recommend them. I also have a book by the delightful Ang Pompano called SIMMERING SECRETS to read. Right now, I’m attending the Ashland Mystery Festival in Oregon and planning a visit to the post office tomorrow to mail back all of the books I’m purchasing at the local indie bookshop Bloomsbury Books.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've been in and out of the hospital the last couple of weeks with some health stuff, so have definitely needed comfort reading. I ran across a series by LT Shearer about a retired Metropolitan Police detective who lives on a narrowboat in Little Venice (obviously irresistible to me) and who is befriended by a talking cat called Conrad. I never read Lillian Jackson Braun's books so I don't know how these compare. This series is a bit of an oddity, as it sounds super cozy but the mysteries, especially in the later books, are actually well-plotted police procedurals. The first book is THE CAT WHO CAUGHT A KILLER and I was charmed enough to plow through all five.

Also, I read MAD ABOUT YOU by British author Heidi Stevens. This one is set in the Cotswolds and I loved it so much I didn't want to read anything else when I finished it. Lucy, as you like Jenny Colgan you would probably love Stevens!

Now I've started Meg Mason's SOPHIE, STANDING THERE, for Kris Atomic's online book club, and I'm also reading a new biography of Charles Darwin, ORIGIN STORY, by Howard Markel.

Next up will be Ann Cleeves new Mathew Venn.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: After a bit of a dry spell, I’m finding a plethora of great, fun mysteries this fall! I just finished MURDER AT THE GRAND ALPINE HOTEL by Lucy Foley and Agatha Christie. Yes, it’s a new Miss Marple, okayed by the Christie estate. (Who benefits from that, I wonder?) It’s a stunningly scenic everyone-trapped-by-the-weather novel set in 1950. I have to admit, I figured out whodunnit about ⅔ of the way through, but it was so well-written I enjoyed the ride all the way to the end of the piste. 

Currently reading HOW TO WRITE A MURDER by Jessica Brody. Like THE ENDING WRITES ITSELF, which I raved about last time, this is a group of mystery writers gathered together in a remote place, this time for a conference. I’m only a little way in, but so far, it’s a real page-turner.

I missed Benjamin Stevenson’s latest Ernest Cunningham mystery when it came out this spring, so EVERYONE IN THIS BANK IS A THIEF is waiting in the wings. 

My total author crush Emily St. John Mandel has a new speculative fiction novel just out, EXIT PARTY. I think I’m 157 on the waiting list at the Portland Public Library, so we’ll see if my patience can outlast my desire to stick to my book budget this quarter.

Reds, what are you reading these days?