I planted several varieties of pumpkins last spring in the corner of the playground.  I’m not sure what happened to them, but as summer progressed, only one of the plants survived.  I watched several small bright green pumpkins growing under the orange blooms.  The vine took hold, literally.  It spread to fill the whole corner of the yard, it wound its way up over the bushes and even into a nearby flowering pear tree on the other side of the wrought iron fence. There were 6 or 7 large green pumpkins growing on the vine, nestled and hiding in the huge leaves on the ground.  They flattened out and gained character and attitude.  Squatty and gray-green.  Aaron turned them each upright so they wouldn’t have flat sides.  We waited for them to turn orange.  It never happened.  This must have been the only not-orange variety I planted.  I actually had to buy orange pumpkins this year!  Last week I took the wheelbarrow and picked 5 large heavy squatty green-gray pumpkins to decorate the front steps, along side a few orange ones from the neighbor’s Pumpkins For Sale place.

Sunday as I was walking home from church along the sidewalk under the flowering pears, I admired the tenacious vine that had wound its way up into the top of one of the trees.  That’s when I spotted the renegade–about six feet off the ground, hanging near the crotch of the tree was a bright green, perfectly round pumpkin, the size of a basketball!  A pumpkin in our pear tree!

I’ve had fun showing it to all the neighbor kids who come to play in the playground.  I sing the refrain to them, and we all admire our pumpkin who wants to be a partridge.  I think I’ll leave it there awhile.  It obviously is not interested in our Halloween celebrations.  I think it’s hoping for an early Christmas!