The Great Pumpkin Shortage

Uh oh. 

I was just reading a report that farmers are experiencing a crop shortage in their pumpkin farms.  Philadelphia's and Maine's pumpkin farms are seeing at least a 50% decline in yield. Other farms in Maryland aren't harvesting as many as expected.  New England farmers blame a very rainy season which caused some seedlings to be washed away and some farmers even losing their entire pumpkin crop. Other farms are reporting that the rains delayed the growing season so that we might not have enough of those big, bright orange pumpkins for carving during the Halloween and Thanksigiving holidays.

Halloween without Jack-o-Lanterns?  Thanksgiving without pumpkin pies? It's inconceivable.  Consumers have already reported that they are not seeing canned pumpkins on the grocery shelves as expected.  According to Roz O'Hearn of Nestle, the company that owns the Libby canned food subsidiary says that, the heavy rains left them without a surplus but that they expect a turnaround so that evreything should be okay for the holidays.  Whew! In the meantime, the kids will have to make do with a smaller selection and gourds as giveaways when they visit a pumpkin patch to pick out their pumpkins.

In light of a possible pumpkin shortage, consider:

• Cornering the canned pumpkin market by buying as many canned pumpkins as you can from the grocery shelves and sell them for as much as twice or three times the price the closer we get to Thanksgiving (Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You'll be able to plump up your retirement plans now!).
• Making Jack-o-Lanterns for Halloween out of large turnips and beets like they used to in the oldeth Celtic days.
• Making gourd pie for Thanksgiving????
• Finding out what the heck is a gourd.

These are gourds,I think,but there really is a difference.