Monday, October 4, 2010

What's In Your Garden?

Okay, so I stalk follow some of you that participate in this Saturday Centus thingy and I thought I'd try my hand at it, mostly because the prompt triggered a memory. What I found out is that this is hard!  One hundred paragraphs?  Sure, no problem.  One hundered sentences?  Easier and less wordy.  But to limit oneself to a mere one hundred words?? Oy! Now I understand why Tom (a regular contributor  to the Centus and an extremely talented writer) babbles on with his huge intros (and I do mean that in the nicest of ways, Tom - I really do enjoy them!).  Being so limited while writing my entry, I felt the need - nay, the compulsion - to release the traffic jam of verbosity stuck in my head, hence this intro.

I will say, however, that this was (is) fun, not to mention difficult, and if any of you haven't heard this writing challenge, please visit Jenny Matlock at ...off on my tangent... for details and other entries.


So, without further droning ado...

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What's In Your Garden?

"Mrs. McDonald is coming by today to pick some veggies from our garden. Can you be here to let her in?", said mom as she headed out for work.

"Okay", I replied.

I had no idea what mom planted that year, but there was a lot.

"Where are the 'giant zucchini' your mom told me about?", asked Mrs. McDonald.

Not ever having seen a zucchini at that point in my life, I went out and pointed to an enormous bunch of large green things.

"Those aren't zucchini, they're pumpkins", she laughed.

I soon learned to make pumpkin pie. Ad nauseum.

32 comments:

  1. Pumpkin is my favourite kind of pie! And I'm sure to have some this Thanksgiving weekend!

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  2. Yum! Pumpkin.

    Nice job with the Centus.

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  3. dufus: Oh, yes! Happy Thanksgiving! I don't really care for turkey, but pumpkin pie? Yummy! (See - you really do like veggies!)
    ;-)

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  4. Reffie: If we ever grow that many pumpkins again, I'll send you a pie!

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  5. my daughter went to check her tomato plant that she planted in our garden last week and was quite surprised to see jalapenos growing on the plant. Your story brought that to mind

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  6. Who doesn't love pumpkin pie? Great take on the prompt, and your writing is clear with concrete images that make it very readable.


    Thanks...........cj

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  7. RockiBottom: Like most squash seeds, peppers and tomoato seeds look alike. Hey, at least she got a plant out of it and should be proud nonetheless! Thanks for visiting!

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  8. cj: I think that's all we ate for an entire week! Thank you for your comments and for dropping by!

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  9. loved that 'slice of life'! Thanks for sharing the memory.

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  10. Well there you are! I thought maybe you'd given up on blogging and were taking up commenting full time :-) We planted our first garden this year and it was a success. We're going to expand it next year...now I think we'll include pumpkins!

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  11. alison: Most of my posts are about my life's experiences and I like to share those "slices". And thanks for coming by!

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  12. Nicky!! Oh dear! I'm still here, just not melting as fast anymore - the temp and humidex has fallen to the point that wayward pieces of paper and dog hair are no longer sticking to my body so I'm trying to type more than just comments.

    I'm glad to hear your garden was a success! Keep it up! And, if you do plant pumpkins - or any other kind of 'squish' - put a piece of cardboard under the gourd to keep it from ground rot.

    Okay, I'll shut up now.
    ;-)

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  13. Well, I guess you learned two things; what a zucchini looked like and how to make pumpkin pie lol. Great Centus.

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  14. Vicki: Thanks! Considering my age and never having baked before, the pies came out pretty good!

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  15. Yo 00! I left the Centus because I was going crazy with too many memes. I do love popping around to see what folks do with the prompt. Nice job with the dialogue and the story.

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  16. You did a great job with the Centus this week OOdozo! It made me hungry for pumpkin pie! And thank you for your kind words and shout out! I'm glad you enjoy the intros. You pegged me correctly. I'm the same way as you. If all I could do was write a tiny story, I'd probably go bonkers. LOL! I look forward to more of your SC!

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  17. Nice job! It is harder than it sounds, isn't it? This made me laugh, my hubby is from the city and wouldn't know a squash from an ear of corn in it's fresh state :) Kat

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  18. Cheryl: I pop around too, and if I have something to contribute, I'll try it, but I don't think I could keep up like you did! And thanks!

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  19. Tom: Heh, heh. You're welcome! And thank you too! It's hard to write with so few words when there are too many running amok up 'there' - ack!

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  20. Kat: Thanks! This really was tough! Heh, heh - don't tell your hubby, but there's this squash here that almost looks like an ear of corn! I don't remember the name of it, though.

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  21. I've never planted pumpkins. We have a plum tree and two lemon trees and mint and rosemary in our garden. I think I'll make a lemon plum pie with mint! No, actually, I won't. I can't make a pie crust if my life depended on it, plus it sounds gross. I love zucchini though and should plant some. Actually, there's a lot of things I should do, but I'm lazy.

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  22. Linda: The pumpkins were a mistake, but not so much of a bad one! We've been trying for a half-decent veggie garden but suspect all the seeds have been "irradiated" with other bulk shipments that travel through the U.S. Fresh lemons are always good for cooking (i.e. fish) and lemondade, of course!

    Pie crust is easy, really! Yeah, it'll look like crap the first time out, but you'll get better at it - the trick is not to work the dough too much or hardly at all. Else, you can always buy the frozen ones.
    ;-)

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  23. My mom and I are great fans of all things America. After years and years of hearing about Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie we finally one year decided to make our own pumpkin pie. We bought a pumpkin, carved it open, made disgusted sounds at what we found on the inside, baked a pie, ate it and decided we didn't like Thanksgiving that much anyway.

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  24. Ziva: Thanksgiving isn't just all about the pies (although some would like it to be - yum!). Personally, I don't like turkey too much - another Thanksgiving 'must'. Oh, the large "orange" pumpkins aren't normally used for pies, but they can be. But, it's best you go for the canned pumpkin - no "oooogies" involved.
    ;-)

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  25. Welcome to SC! I'm glad you took the plunge.

    I like the discipline of condensing my usual word-a-holic tendencies down to a tiny, little story.

    Nobody can top Tom's introductions! He is a master!

    But your story was right up there with the best of them!

    Thanks for trying your hand at this. I hope to see you again.

    Thanks for linking up.

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  26. Jenny: Thanks for your comments and the warm welcome. Yep, Tom is a character. And I hope to try it again. Thanks.

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  27. I loved your take on this week's prompt...and I agree with you, the SC are harder than they appear.

    PS...what a great blog name ;-)

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  28. Koby: Hi! And thank you for your comment and visiting my blog (ugh! - I hate that word, but what can you do, eh?).

    SC is hard to do, yet I will try it again if I can keep my babbling to a minimum.

    "When I reach" is a Bahamian saying and a universal answer to anything that won't be done right away (i.e. "When you be comin' to fix my baker?" ... "When I reach". Hey, it works for me! Thanks!
    ;-)

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  29. Good for you. I could never do that. Often times, my fricken comments exceed 100 words. And to restrict myself to that many words, the essence of my point would get lost in my inability to get straight to the point. So you'll understand when I say that I think you succeeded, you are brilliant, but I am too chicken to ever try this at home :)

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  30. Sandra: Heh, heh - I know another blogger whose comments could be considered short stories (not that I mind long comments), so you're not alone. ;-)

    There is another writing challenge around that limits you to only fifty-five words! Yikes! I doubt I'll even try that one.

    Thanks for dropping in! And stay warm up there in Winterpeg, Manisnowba, eh!

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