Unexpected blessings

I’ve been a little slow to remove the pumpkin from the porch.

Why hurry? The bright orange adds color to the creeping brown of winter.  The lawn is succumbing to the cold nights. The decorative flowers are now crumpled to the ground.

The days are shorter. I have to hunt out the things that cheer, since joy is not found as easily as in the carefree days of Autumn.

So this festive orange sphere serves as a signpost marking an entrance to a increasingly hopeful, happy place.

But last week, I saw strange markings on the pumpkin. Each day, there were shavings on the ground around it.  Then I caught the culprit. It was a squirrel, bushy tail swaying as he eyed me eyeing him. He had laboring at the skin, scratching off flakes, digging to get inside the cavarn.

He scampered up in the tree as I came out of the house,  knife gleaming in the afternoon sun. But I wasn’t after him. I slit open the side of the pumpkin, revealing the still wet flesh and prized seeds inside.

It didnt’ take long for him to shimmy down the tree and enter the grand opening. I watched him gleefully dig in. Paws and nose orange-stained, stringy evidence on his back. He glanced up at the eyes looking through the window — stood up on his back paws and fluffed his tail in silent appreciation.



“Unexpected Blessings,” David Rupert