Suddenly I’m distracted by an awful problem--I think we've got a dead animal under the house or something. There's that horrible smell and I can't find the source but it's been here since yesterday, getting worse. At least my husband would be home later and could try to find it. We really looked all over for where that smell was coming from. Finally decided it wasn't under the house. I had recently found a dried up mouse in one of Scott's toy cupboards, so Larry was getting ready to empty out all my kitchen shelves when he noticed my pumpkin swimming in its own juices at the back of the counter.

I'd saved it from the year before and had begun to think it would just dry out like a decorative gourd. I think it was the biggest of the whole patch. Greg had planted them and he and Scott were tending them before he died. Scott had his whole kindergarten class walk over to see them growing. Anyway, this big one he'd picked out to display at the memorial services, his Dad's pumpkin.

So I'd been saving it all that time since we'd picked it in August, and now it's July a year later. Well, rotting flesh, even if it's just vegetable, is still rotting flesh. The worst thing was that Larry got so zealous when he found it, instead of dropping it right into the trash that I'd run over there with, he thought it best to whisk it outside. But it couldn't take all that swinging in the air and fell apart, splat, all over the steps out to the patio. What a stinky mess! We sure get enough things to laugh about. I got him the BBQ spatula to help scoop up what he could, and he hosed down the rest. So much for saving that lone pumpkin. A little furry, but not animal. Whew.