A Pumpkin in My Pipes

Oct 24

Is there a season so rich with tradition as Fall? We can easily connect four or five seasonal events, customs, and activities with summer: watching Cardinal baseball, boating and floating on the lakes and rivers, July 4th fireworks, and county fairs. Likewise, with spring and winter. But, Fall? Fall has it all!

One of the many traditions that my kids grew up with during this season of seasons was roasting the pumpkin seeds after cleaning out and carving the pumpkin. So, when my daughter asked me before the end of September if we could get a pumpkin, I couldn’t help but oblige. I knew it would rot before Halloween, but, if my 19-year-old wanted to buy a pumpkin, I was all in.

Recipe for Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

Reminding her of the process, she completed her artistry, set the Jack-O-Lantern on the porch, and proceeded to rinse the pumpkin seeds… in the bathroom sink. As I preheated the oven and prepared the cookie sheet, I clearly missed what caused her to move from the kitchen.

This is the child that got her little hands spanked more than a few times when she was little. She stuck a paperclip in my car ignition in order to restart the car and hear the radio after we were home and parked; that resulted in a tow and $300 repair. She waved a magnet wand over the television and ruined the picture. She somehow de-programmed our Garmin in a fingering frenzy. So, why should it surprise me that she would rinse pumpkin seeds in the lavatory?

Once rinsed, salted, and in the oven, “Fingers” mentioned to me that a few pumpkin seeds had escaped and gone down the drain, but I didn’t think a lot about it. I put it out of my mind until… I was brushing my teeth one morning a couple of weeks later. My hand covered with white, frothy lather, I leaned forward to spit when I saw this light green leaf reaching around the metal drain plug and sticking out ever so slightly. It took mere seconds for me to recall F’s words. Not much surprises me when it comes to my girl, but I did find it creepy. I mean, what’s down there? Hair, fingernail clippings, saliva… and, a pumpkin plant.

I summoned my husband into the bathroom, and he successfully extracted not one, but two stems from the drain. These guys were pretty solid; they weren’t fragile or frail. They looked hearty. This was weird, but not as weird as the fact that this happened on two more days that week. By the third day, I was getting a little freaked out. I suggested that Jeff run something down the pipe or, better yet, take the drain apart. I mean, we might have a full-on pumpkin patch growing; I expected to open the cabinet below and see a few sitting amidst my lotions and cosmetics. He chose instead to spray weed killer into the drain. That works, too.

Now, I know there is this science called hydroponics, but who would have thought that a few discarded pumpkin seeds sitting saturated in dirty water and skin cells would do so well? It turns out that pumpkin seeds are one of the easiest plants to grow from seed. Cauliflower is one of the hardest. That works well, because I don’t think visiting a cauliflower patch would be nearly as much fun. And, the pictures would be really boring.

Kids can be like pumpkins and cauliflower. My son is a pumpkin. He’s solid and determined. Like those five or six pumpkin plants that grew in grimey water and weaved their way through metal barriers to find the light, he’s able to navigate roadblocks that hinder him. He’s able to survive the gunk that gets in the way and move forward. The seeds were dropped in a soilless sink and grew, for goodness sake!

My crazy, precious daughter is more like a cauliflower. Cauliflower needs a long growing season, and they are particular. They don’t like it too hot or too cool; they need to be planted at just the right time to do well. They need to be blanched, have their stalks bent, and have their leaves wrapped — it’s a whole procedure. This is my girl. She’s sensitive and emotional and dramatic. She’s a lot!

So, what makes some kids easy and others so very challenging? Some resilient while others fall and falter with little provocation? That’s got to do with about ten different kinds of science, but here’s what I know. I love pumpkins, particularly when they are abundantly growing in the appropriate places; they are at the heart of one of my favorite fall traditions. I love cauliflower, too. No veggie tray is complete without their lumpy presence. And, bacon and broccoli make a much better salad when balanced with cauliflower chunks.