I love mondays, getting back into the routine, being able to sleep in a little, the wonderful fresh baking bread, today I made a double batch of cranberry orange pancakes for Dh’s breakfasts, and the house smells heavenly as there is a apple almond spice cake baking at the moment..

Monday means something else, it means we get advice from our gardener on CBC and today one of the subjects being talked about was the lack of pumpkins available, the reduce crops of all winter sqaush’s, acorn, butternut and of course being oct the much loved orange pumpkin. If I got it right, they are saying that there was a reduced crop in the states as well as a reduced crop (up to 50%) in our heavy cropping areas, at least in the province they appeared to explain it as due to lack of rain in July, or summed up into a hot dry summer..

Now, I don’t get out to the stores enough to notice that they were lacking pumpkins, they didn’t have any at the one store that I did get to last week, they just had the big bin of acorn that had not been cured properly and they were not in good shape, but they were normal size, but according to the radio, main stores in the bigger centers are missing their orange hue.

Hmmm, I can say that on the short drive from my farm to the nearest bigger town, there are end of gate sales filled with pumpkins, at least ten box’s or for sale signs, only one with a person, the rest are just like our corn, a box, a price list and the product.

Now stepping away from what is the “norm” to what I see in my own backyard, and its a whole different story, the winter squash’s rocked it this year, I got them planted late, Hubby then transplanted them into area’s that were not prepared correctly while I was gone, I stuck extra seeds into spaces where crops had failed when I got home and still despite all the things that we did wrong with them this year, we have hundreds of pds of them coming in, Big ones, med ones, and little ones, pure ones, mixed ones that I will give a try and if good, will try and figure out who crossed with what, if bad, the pig will love it even if I don’t.

So are you noticing a lack of pumpkins in your local area? Did you have a good winter sqaush production this year? While all of mine did well, the butternut is the one that is the grand winner this year, and if I could just figure out where the camera went, I would take a photo or two.. Which one was the biggest producer for you this season?