Spooooky Pumpkins...

Yesterday R and I had a belated fall activity evening. As the weekend was so windy and cold and the thought of sitting in the studio with the windows wide open arranging the flower boxes was not going to be an option, we decided that we'd do our autumn display last night, when it was mild and pleasant.

While I was cooking up some dinner (winter turnips boiled with butter and salt, home made mac and cheese and garlic sauteed kale) R got to work with the pumpkin. For those readers out there who may want to know, "where on earth did you get such a gorgeous pumpkin?"well, this orange beauty was hand picked in the great pumpkin patch outside of Rochester, NY on October 8th.
First step in ghouling the pumpkin, the removal of the brain. pretty gruesome. pulp, seeds, innards, all over the kitchen floor.

Next, we searched all over the house for a variety of tools we could alter to help in the very difficult art of pumpkin carving. Big and small knives, grapefruit spoons and an xacto-blade. R thought it would be more interesting to carve out a spooky scene. Plus, my pumpkin faces were just not scary enough for our giant gourd.
After a dinner break, we got back to work, scrapping the idea of adding in a howling coyote. mainly due to the fact that my coyote looked more like a mutant rat. scary, but not in a good way.

The final test, once all the carving and scraping was done, was to put it in the window, put a votive candle inside, and turn out all the lights..... Are you scared??