Against All Odds

L brought home a sealed Ziploc bag of wet pumpkin seeds fresh from a pumpkin they'd cut into at school with this announcement, "Momma!  We have to pwant these seeds in the gah-duhn!"  Then he set them on our bar where I kept forgetting to throw them away when he was gone since I thought there was no chance they'd sprout.  (Mom of the Year, right here.)

One day over a week later while I was picking up limbs he went to the garden to plant them.  I don't even know if he took a shovel, but he reported he'd planted his seeds and I appreciated his optimism as much as I appreciated that they'd decay in the soil adding nutrients for our spring plants.

Then today, less then two weeks later, I was cleaning thistles out of the garden when I saw this.

Hmmm, I thought, wonder what in the world this could be.  Later it dawned on me that this could be L's pumpkin plant, but I could not believe those seeds were viable.

Later the boys came to help herd the chickens back to their coop and L was ECSTATIC to see his seeds had grown right where he'd planted them.  We put a cage around it and it'll be interesting to see how big they get before the first freeze!