Pumpkin Carving Art Class

My friend Bushy the Squirrel has been taking art classes. This isn't your traditional art class either. The art teacher is big on expressing oneself creatively. For their very first class, she made them put their paint brushes away, and use their tails as brushes instead. (I did mention this was a critter art class, didn't I?) It took a few classes, but the students got rather good at tail brushes.

October's classes have focused on studying post-modernist paintings and three dimensional artwork. Bushy has found this genera of art absolutely fascinating. (Personally, I find it totally baffling and way too abstract). Since it is Halloween month, the teacher has come up with a fun project. The students have to "carve" a pumpkin in the post-modern style as their project. Bushy found a perfect pumpkin just "lying" around uncarved on Mom's porch. Why would anyone leave a pumpkin uncarved?

Bushy moved the pumpkin from the porch to the ground littered with fall leaves for better inspiration.  He started to chew a hole through the pumpkin to create a pumpkin burrow. He realized that was too simple. He wanted a bold piece of art.

When I arrived to check on his progress, I found him deep in thought.

All that thinking about his art project made him hungry. He devoured the secret stash of sunflower seeds hidden in the leaves.

 
Bushy started to carefully remove the dark orange skin of the pumpkin to reveal the yellow interior.

Apparently all of this creative effort required a second round of snacks.

In the middle of snacking, he had another inspiration and went to work.

Claws and teeth were carving away at a furious pace.

When he was finished, he stood back to made a final assessment and was pleased with his effort.

Bushy pumpkin “carving” started to attract attention almost immediately. It evoked strong emotions with each critter. 

 
This Mourning Dove thought this was the most impressive piece of art since the Mona Lisa was painted. 

Here is the pumpkin installed at the “Porch Gallery.” Mom, dropped by and asked if anyone had seen her pumpkin she was saving for Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

Great Pumpkin Party

Merry and Archie grew a lot of pumpkins but could only enter one of them in the giant pumpkin contest. There was a lively debate at the Woodpile as to what could be done with the rest of the pumpkins. The ideas range from the traditional, like a pumpkin carving contest, to the adventurous, like making boats out of them and racing them down the Merrimac River. After days of debate, the Woodpile finally came to a compromise. We would have a carving contest for the best looking boat and then race them. We went out to the pumpkin patch to pitch the idea to Merry and Archie. We found them busy selling the LAST of their pumpkins to their competitors. It seems they had won the giant pumpkin contest and everyone wanted to buy seeds from their patch for next year’s contest. They were happy to sell, which seemed a bit odd. But they let us in on the secret. Genetics only accounted for 50% of the success of a giant pumpkin. The other 50% was the secret formula they fed their pumpkins. They had nothing to fear from their competitors.

In all our excitement for their spectacular win, we almost forgot about why we came to the pumpkin patch in the first place. There was a collective sigh of disappointment when everyone saw the empty patch. Everyone was ready return to the Woodpile when Merry and Archie pulled some leaves off a pumpkin they had saved especially for the Woodpile. A quick council was convened, and it was decided since we only had one pumpkin, we would just throw a Great Pumpkin party instead.

In order to get to the party, you had to successfully find your way through a corn maze. The maze was designed by Vinnie using his super computer. According to his calculations, it would take a minimum of two hours to find your way through it. But,  he miscalculated. We just followed the smell of Guinness flavored sunflowers seeds at the party and got there in no time!

 A new dance move was invented at the party called "walk like a pumpkin.” It mimicked the curvature of the pumpkin stem.

I took a break from the dancing to have a snack.

I heard a disembodied voice say, “I am the Great Pumpkin, who dares eat my sunflower seeds?”

I got out of there in a hurry.

 

Turns out, it was just Chippy Jr. playing a practical joke on dad from on top of the Woodpile!

 

Selfies with the “Great Pumpkin” were popular.

A line of critters waiting to get their photo with the pumpkin had formed.

One ‘munk spent too much time trying the find the perfect pose. When he did, another ‘munk jumped into his photo, and everyone started to laugh.

Secrets of the Pumpkin Patch

In the previous post, I left off my investigation of Archie and Merry’s secret project with more questions than answers. I have some news to report.

I found a trail of discarded sunflower seed shells and followed it to another plot in the community garden. I was a surprised to find Archie and Merry’s name on the registration for the plot. I was even more surprised to discover, they had used some fake human credentials to get them themselves a plot. What were they growing? Sunflowers? Nope. They had themselves a pumpkin patch. No ordinary pumpkin patch at that. It was a giant pumpkin patch. It seems that the two of them were intent on winning the giant pumpkin growing contest at the Topsfield Fair. They were trying to decide which one to enter. There was rather lively disagreement going on.

I got to hand it to them, they went “big” with their patch. There were pumpkins everywhere I looked.

I don’t know how they found their way around. The patch was as dense as a rainforest. (For my human fans, look at it from our perspective at 3 inches off the ground). For obvious reasons, one can’t just hack ones way through this “jungle”. 

 
Merry and Archie spent an hour estimating the weight of their pumpkins. Frustratingly all of them were coming out lighter than their competitors. They were ready to give up. Archie encouraged Merry to check one more pumpkin hidden under the leaves.

They started to clear the vegetation away to get a better look.

They were surprised to discover the pumpkin was long, very long and very heavy. Heavy enough to make their competition jealous.

 
Merry whispers to Archie, “I heard some rustling noises in the patch. I think we have a spy. Lets sneak up and catch him or her.” Oops, I think I better get out of here before I am caught! Too late …They were relieved to find it was just me rather than their competitors.