Nothing becomes obsolete faster than pumpkin decor the day after Thanksgiving when all the neighbors are putting up Christmas decorations. And so today I find myself in this situation. I have a bonanza of pumpkins decorating my front steps this year, thanks to the generosity of a Vermont farmer who GAVE them to me. I happened to stop by to buy some pumpkins the same day that she was going to call the pig farmer to ask him if he wanted them to feed his pigs. So, lucky me, I got the pig food to furnish the front of my house.

Each year I compost my jack o’lanterns and Thanksgiving decor. This year, the squirrels and the birds have inspired a different plan. Rather than fight the squirrels gnawing away an entire pumpkin, or this year an entire mini pumpkin patch, I am allowing the squirrels and birds to feast on pumpkin. As the squirrels make progress and the pumpkin becomes unrecognizable as anything other than squirrel food and bird feast, I take the pumpkins to a secluded place in the garden behind a shrub and leave the pumpkins for the birds, and the squirrels. It is a marvelous symbiotic relationship. Within a very short time, the pumpkins are eaten into disappearing.

Why not try it yourself?