The squash bonanza!

By Jack Elliott
Contributor

It never fails. Every fall my garden provides me with a bonanza of those glorious gourds – squash. I love squash- all kinds. Summer, spaghetti, butternut, buttercup, acorn, Hubbard, even zucchini. So every year I dedicate a ‘smallish’ portion of the garden to these beauties and wind up having them take over the majority of it plus the neighbouring lawn and the ditch. This year they were at Len’s- my remote garden patch- as the Pearl had banned me from planting any more garden amongst her flowers.
“Geez Elliott, you’re getting carried away. How am I going to cut the lawn, the @#$% things are running wild!” complained Len one day.
“That’s okay, just cut ‘em off, “ I suggested not the least upset by the rampaging vines.
“I tried that and they wrapped up in the mower something fierce. Took me hours to get the $%^& things pulled out of the deck!” grumped Len as muttering he walked away.
“Not to worry, the frost ‘ll finish them off soon and we harvest a bumper crop,” I shot at his retreating back, but he’d already turned off his hearing aids.
Sure enough, a week later the sharp frost had collapsed the vines revealing an amazing hoard of gourds. I backed the truck up to the patch and started loading. I had the box about full when Len came rolling out.
“Hey don’t forget to leave some for me,” he grumped and then turned toward the pile I had set aside and added, “Holy %^&*! Not that many.” There’s no pleasing the man.
I managed to give away a good portion of my haul to several neighbours, but had to give up when they stopped answering their doors and would not return my repeated phone messages. So I started the annual ritual. That’s where I haul about 50 of these beauties down to the basement. This is a back breaking and dangerous routine as I managed to stumble on the stairs at least twice and scrape the skin off my scalp on the floor joists. But at last the chore is completed and I look with pride at my hoard.
Next spring I will complete the ritual by hauling 48 of the rotted carcasses back out to the compost.
“Not this year,” I vow
Last week I carry through. With the squash now fully seasoned an at its peak, I dragged out the big old blender we never use, cranked up the microwave, and started nuking squash. By evening I had the freezer half full of two cup packages of mashed, premium squash. Just right for making pumpkin pie, muffins and other assorted goodies.
“Goodness! Look at the mess you’ve made in my kitchen,” stormed the Pearl surveying the orange globs spattered hither and yon.
“Yeah, I had a little trouble figuring out the switch on that blender. I’ll just get out of your way so you can clean up,” I offered as I headed out the door to the coffee shop. I didn’t quite catch the Pearl’s reply but I aim to please.
So now I’ve eliminated the problem of carrying squash out to the compost next spring, would anyone like to volunteer helping me carry freezer burned packages out to the dump next fall to make room for the 2012 crop?