Pumpkin Festival 2013 - Update 3 - The Big Pumpkin

 PARTY TIME!!!

 Peter is grabbing some pumpkin vine, and Butters is intently observing.

Butters successfully scooped up the vine and tugged it into his hammock.  Peter is nibbling on the pumpkin stalk.  

Stay tuned for additional Pumpkin Fiesta 2013 Updates.

Pumpkin Festival 2013 - Update 2 - Practice Pumpkin's Carving Completed

 In less than 24 hours, my sweet little rats completely carved their wee pumpkin.  There is no evidence of pumpkin seeds or guts.

 Here's Walternate showing off his hard work.

And, a few hours later, we removed the pumpkin and I tried to get a pretty picture outside.  The pumpkin walls are mostly paper thin in this photo.

Our full size pumpkin is going to be cleaned up, and it looks like we are going to try it without a starter hole as our little ratties seem to know what to do with a pumpkin.  So, don't worry Pumpkin Festival 2013 is not over.

Pumpkin 2013 First Update

Here's a video of the practice pumpkin.

It's Pumpkin Festival 2013 Time

Welcome to our annual Pumpkin Festival.  Over the years we have learned that pumpkins bought at pumpkin farms last longer than store bought.  So, here are two pumpkins on their way home from Harris Hill Farm.

This is our first year picking pumpkins at Harris Hill Farm.  I was thrilled.  Lots of farm animals, and the pumpkins were actually in a pumpkin patch not hauled to a decorative "pumpkin patch".  The scenery was amazing.

 This year we decided to start with a little bit of pumpkin training.

I'm thrilled to see such enthusiasm for pumpkin carving.

Don't worry, Pumpkin fiesta isn't just about little pumpkins.  They will get their full sized pumpkin.  And, I hope that we will have another year in which the rats carve a pumpkin to the point that they can actually hang out inside the pumpkin.

Stuff on My Rat 2 - Monopoly House

Today, Philip is pretending to be a snail and carrying around his house (hotel) on his back.

Stuff on My Rat 1

Here's Philip with a Monopoly house on his head. 

Goosemoose currently has a thread with photos of stuff on my rat's head, so I decided to have Philip join the fun.

Something different - Corn bread using corn flour instead of cornmeal.

 Recently, we'd bought some corn flour instead of corn meal because our store lacked corn meal.  After making some corn dogs with it, I really wanted to make corn bread.  I found this lovely recipe at Chow.   I usually keep my recipes on Pinterest, but the recipe lacked a pinnable photo.  So, here are my very own photos that I can pin.

  As you can see in the first photo, I forgot to get a photo of the cornbread uncut.  OOPS.  My cast iron skillet created that scrumptious and lovely crust.  I'd always wanted to do that, and the corn bread is just amazing.  The second photo shows how I served the cornbread with some leftover stew.  It was perfect.  Oh, I also added a small can of green chiles.  I may have to add more next time because the chile flavor was subtle.  I might daringly try an evil jalapeno.  I'm NOT a fan of jalapenos.  They are too stringent.  It's not their heat.  I just prefer the green chile flavor (Anaheim pepper) but I might try a fresh jalapeno.  Hmmmm.