The Great Pumpkin Hunt

I heard there was a pumpkin shortage last year. Do any of you recall this from last autumn? Was it only in NC? The Southeast? Well, anyway, I wanted to bake pumpkin this and pumpkin that, and had to wait until nearer Thanksgiving. It wasn't in the stores! That seemed strange to me, but I just shrugged my shoulders and waited for the pumpkin to appear.

Come to find out, there really was a pumpkin shortage! The Washington Post even had an article about it! So, it WASN'T my imagination!

Anyway, after all the pumpkin bread flying around here last week, I decided it was officially time to get baking, and I looked for pumpkin at WalMart. I, and a couple of other ladies, staring at the shelf where it should be. Hmmm. One of them told me that there was flooding in the pumpkin canning facility, and they lost lots of their inventory. I felt the panic rise in my pumpkin-loving heart.

We saw the pie pumpkins in the veggie section, but I just wasn't quite up for that yet. I also looked at another store in town. Nuthin'!! And by that time, I was ready to cry "Uncle!" and go for pie pumpkins. Adam even offered to prepare them.

So, I dropped in at Food Lion today. No pie pumpkins there either! Eeeek! But I'm a dogged soul. Ask my husband if I'm a wee bit dogged, and he'll roll his eyes and shake his head.

I decided to stroll down the aisles, on the off-chance that they had some lonely, misplaced can of pumpkin sitting around.

And guess what?
I bought EIGHT CANS. I felt selfish, and said to that selfish self, "Self, that's JUST FINE. When it comes to pumpkin, I will get what I can!" That should last us for a while!