His pumpkin sat in a dark corner for three weeks. I noticed it on several visits. “I paid $10 for it. I will carve a Halloween face.” Three weeks later, the pumpkin was still there. “I haven’t gotten around to carving it.” I suggested toasting the seeds. I suggested pumpkin pie. “You can have it but I expect half the seeds and a pumpkin pie.” I held out for a day, and then agreed. It was a magnificent pumpkin, hefty, and a significant addition to the festival of Halloween.

I estimated its weight as 14 pounds and checked the weight and mine. I was right on the button. I have made a hobby of making predictions that I check to see how close I come. After doing this for a decade, I can boast that I’m pretty good on weights, distances, ages etc.

I rushed home to carve this behemoth.  I already had the recipes for toasted pumpkin seeds and pie. I jabbed my special knife into the top and circled it to open. The stalk was thick, and sinuous, and tough. I reached into the cavern to feel the soft, squishy, interior with white egg-shaped seeds. I had an ice cream scoop to scrape the strings that held the seeds. Each seed has its own string. These are pollen tubes from when the bees pollinated the orange pumpkin flower and the pollen developed a tube to travel to the stigma and fertilize the egg.

I had the good fortune to be a beekeeper helper. One client had a 40 acre pumpkin farm and rented ten hives to pollinate his pumpkin flowers. One morning at 6AM, we set down the hives and removed the screen closures to let the bees free. The floppy flowers peeked out from under big, heart-shaped leaves. Months later, the field became pumpkin land. Pumpkins of all sizes popped up strewn among shriveling vines. It’s a wondrous sight to see 40 acres of orange gloves among green. The bees loaded the hives with honey and the farmers border collie ran in crazy circles among the pumpkins.

I halved the pumpkin, then quartered it to make scraping easier. The walls were 2 inches thick so I had to be careful with the knife. I plopped the seeds and strands in a container and began separating seeds from their stringy tubes. There is nothing in nature more slippery than a pumpkin seed. I spent several unsuccessful attempts trying to pick one up. Each seed was a pointed and blunt end. The pointed end has a string attached to it. I pinched off the seeds.  Although only make up a very small portion of the entire pumpkin, when toasted and salted, are delicious. Every seed is precious.

I am amazed at how big a pumpkin can grow from one single flower.  Their genetic makeup allows for the intake of a lot of water through very efficient conducting tubes. At Hallockville Farm Museum, there is a special garden for giant pumpkins. Some weigh 1,000 pounds. The growers erect tents over them and set them on crates when they are small. They visit their prizes daily to water and check progress. I bet their seeds are whoppers.

My goal was to make three pies. I intend to bake chunks until they’re soft,

Scrape the pulp, add the spices and evaporated milk and eggs, mix, pour into ready-made crusts, bake, serve. I had no idea how many chunks I had, way more than for three pies. I decided to role play colonial women who dried pieces of their left over pumpkin and hung them near the fireplace to dry. What they did with the dried pieces, I have yet to discover.

Once I washed the seeds and picked out all pieces of pulp, I covered two cookie pans with a thin coat of oil, spread the seeds, lightly salted them, and popped the trays into a 225 F. oven.  Twenty minutes later, I took out trays of golden, toasted pumpkin seeds. I tasted one.  That one seed was worth all the work I’d done. Now it was time to deliver his share of the bargain.

I have a friend who runs a sanctuary for abused and abandoned farm animals. Every fall, he gets donations of hundreds of left over pumpkins. He feeds them to his goats, sheep, cows, and horses. So, in a sense, those happy animals have their pumpkin pie too.