Good Afternoon Everyone. I had a chance to finish my harvest porch display this weekend. This is the first year I have had a front porch to decorate. I had this grand plan at the beginning of summer that I would grow my own pumpkins and gourds for the front porch decorating, carving and general use through Thanksgiving. For our big vegetable garden, we put a barrier around it to keep the deer, antelope, rabbits, raccoon, bears and various other animals out of it. The barrier worked great, we did not lose anything to our lovable wild life. The pumpkins and gourds I planted on the outside of the barrier between our pump house and the thickets. I was very excited in the early-mid summer when I was seeing rapid growth of the vines and a lot of blooms. I had this nostalgic scene in my head… my boys would be out picking their pumpkins from the 20-30 that we had grown and I would be happily be picking the gourds and ornamental pumpkins for my harvest/Halloween decorating. Seriously, picture the daydreams of Ralphie in a Christmas Story. I realized in mid August that no fruit was forming, I thought that was odd, maybe I was not watering enough, so I upped the watering time. I found 1 pumpkin hidden the shade growing right next to the pump house. Remember, I grew up in the city, so what was happening to my pumpkin/gourd garden was new to me. The rabbits and deer were pillaging my harvest as the fruit started to form. Talk about disappointment (again, think Ralphie when he gets the C on his theme). All of my nostalgic Norman Rockwell fantasies ceased to exist and the reality was we will have to go the pumpkin patch and local farm stand to get our pumpkins this year, which for the boys might be more fun anyway.
Last week on a couple of lunch breaks, I went and bought 2 straw bales and a few ornamental and carving pumpkins from a local feed store in Boise. After a sneeze filled drived home, I unloaded my bales and what I saw was, that the back of my Outback looked like a scarecrow had exploded in the wagon end. It was covered with straw from the ceiling to the carpet, spilling over into the back seats. I am very grateful to have a husband who loves me and a really clean car, because he vacuumed it out after it was all unloaded. Mental note, next year take the truck.
I spent Saturday and Sunday adding items and decorating. The pallet table is a piece my husband made for me. It works great for decorating and as a plant staging surface. The table could also be used as a serving station if you do a lot of outdoor entertaining. I used the table, the straw bales, pumpkins, gourds, mums and our friendly scarecrow. I really like how it turned out. We will be using this for a photo back drop for the boys when we have our family pictures taken on Sunday.
Here is my front porch display, complete with a Milo photo bomb.
I hope you enjoyed the read and got a chuckle two out of my crushed fantasies of nostalgia. Please leave me comments, how you decorate or ideas that you think would add to it, or your own crushed nostalgic dreams. I welcome humor anytime.
Have a great week and be grateful…
jennscountryweekends 