October 25. Pumpkin Day! A day to celebrate those orange members of the squash family that become VERY popular during this time of the year. Pumpkins are believed to have originated in North America – but they are grown the world over. Except for Antarctica. I guess penguins don’t make jack-o-lanterns. In Britain and Ireland, there has been a long tradition of carving vegetables into lanterns at Halloween and they were originally turnips. But apparently pumpkins were first used in North America for jack-o-lanterns.
In 2014, Beni Meier of Switzerland set a World Record for HUGE Pumpkins. His pumpkin weighed in at 2323 lbs!!!! I’m not sure if that record has been broken yet this year. A cool pumpkin fact – it was Howard Dill, a NOVA SCOTIA farmer, and 4 time World Champion for huge pumpkins, who developed the famous “Dill’s Atlantic Giant” seeds which have produced many of the world-record pumpkins. Those pumpkins routinely weigh more than 1000 lbs. A jack-o-lantern from one of those pumpkins could light up a small town.
Another pumpkin fact – pumpkin is EXCELLENT for us dogs when we are having dietary problems. My human always has a can handy – JUST in case one of us gets….hmmmm….how do I say this….soupy poops. Now be careful to use the PLAIN canned pumpkin – NOT the sweetened pie filling stuff. That might lead to MORE problems. My human has also used pumpkin if one of us canines has put on a few extra lbs! She had her first Bernese who became a bit portly. So she reduced his food but added pumpkin – so he felt full – and he quickly took off those added lbs. Pumpkin is a WONDERFUL additive!
So celebrate pumpkins today. And make your dog take a picture with one! And post it to my Facebook page! So I can see other dogs whose humans made then sit with a large orange squash. And look like we are having fun….Even though these things are too big to retrieve.
Not that we didn’t try…
© Linda Wozniak
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