Prolonging the Pumpkin

My precious pumpkin has made its way into photographs in my last two posts, and now that Halloween has come and gone, my pumpkin is still perched prominently on my porch. 

         Now, seeing that we carved up the pumpkin jack-o-lantern style and the time for such grinning gourds has passed, I decided to turn its smiling face towards the stair riser (and out of view) and put some wild flowers (which I plucked from along the road) inside. My original intention was to find some mums or pansies for the pumpkin to hold, but when I saw the cost of such flowers, I decided to improvise.

I was so delighted with my pumpkin vase, I started putting wildflowers in other containers, including a vintage bait bucket and this turkey basket my mother gave me last Thanksgiving.

I also improvised a new front door decoration from antlers, and of course, wild flowers. 

I plan to replace the flowers with greenery and add a Christmas ribbon and perhaps a few baubles after Thanksgiving.

      My favorite seasonal decor is often what I do for free or on the cheap. As I mentioned before, I try to hang on to everything so I can make do with what I have instead of always having to run to the store. This pumpkin, for example, will sit on the porch for as long as it can and then it will find a home in our compost pile and eventually be used as dirt into our garden. And, if I'm lucky, its seeds will spawn yet another porch sitting, jack-o-lantern grinning, wild flower holding pumpkin!