Tiffany (00:01.539)
Hello.

Kat (00:02.682)
Hi Tiffany, how are you?

Tiffany (00:04.202)
Mm good. Tired, but good.

Kat (00:07.098)
Pretending we didn't just talk for an hour about stuff. it has been a minute. I know folks, we promised you that we would come back in October and we did not, and we did not give you an update, and it is because life has been life, and I think I can speak for us both when I say that we have been missing the podcast, because we miss each other, because this is our but also like it's been

Tiffany (00:08.918)
I know. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (00:22.622)
Mm.

Tiffany (00:33.451)
Yes.

Kat (00:36.506)
Blissful not to have a Tuesday night standing date where I'm like, Shit, I'm late

Tiffany (00:40.714)
I know. I'm like texting you. fifteen minutes late.

Kat (00:44.354)
Yeah. Yeah. I I just wanna say tonight we're we're supposed to be talking about pumpkins, but I wanted to say that we are still in development about where this podcast is going for twenty twenty seven.

Tiffany (00:57.14)
Yes. Yeah. We're definitely gonna take a break through the end of the year. So early next year is the earliest we would be back.

Kat (01:02.583)
Yeah.

Kat (01:06.682)
Yeah, don't don't hold us to it. Yeah. We will see. Cause it is a lot of work to do this and it is a hobby for us. We we do have some lovely Patreon supporters, but we don't we don't make money off of this and it's fun and we love it and it's just with changes in life and prioritizing things, it's we haven't been able to find a space for this necessarily. that

Tiffany (01:08.982)
Don't hold your breath.

Tiffany (01:16.01)
Mm.

Tiffany (01:35.358)
Yeah. And we might be able to, but it would be in a different form, so

Kat (01:36.474)
Makes sense.

Yeah, it it might be resurrected as a different entity. I I made myself a cocktail to talk about Halloween stuff tonight and I'm halfway through it, so my brain is already like Sorry all.

Tiffany (01:52.878)
Well you're y you're still using words like resurrected, so that's pretty good.

Kat (01:55.822)
Resurrect a I use bigger words that make less sense as I it's only been one cocktail, yell.

Tiffany (02:03.576)
What are you drinking? looks delicious. I'm drinking water out of my jar or my vase.

Kat (02:05.27)
Manhattan, what do you expect of me?

Your vase, yeah your flower vase. Welcome back, flower vase. We've missed you.

Tiffany (02:15.31)
Right, I'm also holding my microphone, but it doesn't matter.

Kat (02:17.955)
I noticed that too, you're very like Shane Willis or something.

Tiffany (02:21.256)
Yeah, I'm like a freaking new like a local news reporter.

Kat (02:25.113)
Like and but well it's better than this thing that covers my whole face where I'm like, Don't don't look at me

Tiffany (02:30.518)
Right. Yeah. This is 'cause I moved my desk around well, I'm in the process of moving my desk around, so Yeah.

Kat (02:37.081)
That's another thing. It happens. Like la we've been doing this for like four years. So isn't that wild? It will. Mhm. Three and a half years. Yeah.

Tiffany (02:42.816)
It will be four in March, right? Holy shnikes. That's a whole other cat and tiff. We were different people. I had hair.

Kat (02:50.937)
That's right.

I had hair and a and a uterus. Back when I had a uterus those days. Those days are over. I have I do. It's not like I did. I gave it up. I'm turning into my mother. Thank you. It's it's much lighter.

Tiffany (03:01.07)
The good old days of hair and you you still have hair, to be clear. Yeah, she just cut it shorter. It looks awesome. No, it looks awesome. I had I had the same hair anxiety when I cut mine. I cut mine short, probably shorter than yours, maybe a little bit, when I was studying abroad and I cried, sobbed.

Kat (03:23.713)
yeah. no, there's something about like this intrinsic cultural thing about like the hair is a woman's crown or something and it's in there and like it is liberating. Like I have shaved my head. It is liberating. But you also like the first time I shaved my head I went and got my ears pierced 'cause I was like, I'm not a girl anymore You know. It is and you you don't know what's buried in your psyche. Yep. But it is freeing. And the thing is that I feel

Tiffany (03:31.552)
Yes. That that was it. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (03:44.066)
A hundred percent. It's weird. Yep. It's insidious. Mm hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kat (03:54.081)
Un chic. Like I feel it but like I felt unsheik with long hair, so I don't know what

Tiffany (03:58.218)
Yeah. I think it looks try chic.

Kat (04:02.315)
merci. I need to get it. Sh I didn't give her really good direction. I like, Mm Pixie Like was just like a bob mixed with a Pixie and She did a good job but it like I don't like how it looks w if I can't just wake up and go. So I need to go back and get some.

Tiffany (04:08.472)
huh. Yeah.

Tiffany (04:15.562)
No, I know. Short hair is hard 'cause you have to s actually like well, you don't have to, but it requires more work. Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (04:20.675)
Well y if with the right haircut, I wouldn't have to. But I'd also have to be comfortable with not looking a certain I don't know. Anyway, sorry to talk about my hair. anyway, folks, look out. Yes, if you still love us and we love you, I know that I just hung out with Aeron this weekend, who is one of our Patreon supporters. Thank you, Aaron. And he like, You guys didn't even announce that you weren't coming back and I was like, shoot. Somebody cares and it is

Tiffany (04:27.294)
I get it. Yeah.

All that to say.

Tiffany (04:42.502)
that that's

Aww No, I know. I figured somebody would out there and I've been thinking about it for this whole month. I'm like we really should but there's just we just didn't, so

Kat (04:50.306)
Yeah.

Kat (04:55.79)
Yeah.

And I am I'm sorry, like you guys are silent partners. Tiffany and I, this is this is how we talk to each other because we are friends and this is our relationship and I have missed this. So I I try to keep y'all in mind, but it is much easier to just be like, I want to record an episode because I miss Tiffany and Yeah, so that's okay. So anyway, all right, you ready for my intro? All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is our Halloween edition of Greening Up My Act.

Tiffany (05:08.296)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (05:16.456)
Yeah. Let's talk about pumpkins.

Tiffany (05:22.548)
Yes, I am.

Tiffany (05:26.711)
Woohoo.

Kat (05:29.121)
It's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers. I don't know if you follow McSweeney's, it like cool in the two thousands. It like yeah, mate it is. It made me and they post this every year in September. it's a long standing seasonal inside joke about decorative gourds. So it's one of my favorite things about Halloween. Pumpkins. I just Yeah, decorative gourds. Pumpkins are decorative gourds. Technically.

Tiffany (05:37.018)
yeah. It's still around.

Tiffany (05:46.104)
Well yeah.

Tiffany (05:53.198)
I was gonna say decorative gourds, interesting. Although they are cool, yeah. Mm hmm. True. True.

Kat (05:59.385)
It's just an easy pop of color and it instantly screams fall, you know, and Halloween, of course. So why are pumpkins associated with this holiday? And are they a natural, sustainable decor choice?

Tiffany (06:03.783)
Mm. Mm.

Tiffany (06:12.748)
interesting.

Kat (06:19.812)
And what can or should you do with them when you're done with them?

Tiffany (06:23.508)
Uh-huh.

Kat (06:25.402)
Welcome to Greening Up My Act Pumpkin Edition.

Tiffany (06:35.316)
I got it.

Tiffany (06:44.869)
boy. Well that happened. That's all good. No, I forgot. I like d I was like shit Yeah. And I hope I did I even do it right? 'Cause okay. I just wonder they changed this, so I think it's right. You used to have to like choose whether or not it was live or like practice. I don't know. Whatever. Yeah.

Kat (06:47.475)
I didn't need to tell you we were doing the music for this one. We're like, we have music.

You did.

Kat (07:02.266)
Riverside is this

Kat (07:08.038)
This is silly. We're AI is taking over our recording instruments. We might not even be here. We might be replaced by robot AI versions of ourselves in the next year, but I hate it.

Tiffany (07:12.789)
It is

Yeah. And what what is it? Friggin' Instagram's like, here's your new buddy. Or I don't care what they call it. It's like, I don't need a buddy. Go away. Yes. Go away. It's like here's an exc okay, pumpkins. Pumpkins.

Kat (07:26.734)
No. Get off me. Get off me.

Okay, we're talking about No, pumpkins. I had this whole thing. So this is kind of a bonus episode. We're not doing our normal format. I was like, who are we? We are questioning who we are at this point in time. We I are like a, you know, metamorphosis. I'm feeling I think if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that for most of it, I was I I put this in a Facebook post the other night. I was like worryingly underemployed. And a friend texted me and was like, that's the best phrase I've ever

Tiffany (07:40.95)
Yeah.

Tiffany (07:45.013)
We're in a crisis of identity.

Tiffany (07:50.592)
Yeah.

Tiffany (08:00.984)
Mm.

Kat (08:03.256)
I was worryingly underemployed for most of our podcast, and I am not now. And it has changed my entire personality, which fuck capitalism. But it's it's in there. Just like your haircut, right? Like having a job. I mean, just not worrying that my mortgage is gonna be payable.

Tiffany (08:07.531)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (08:14.957)
True, but it's true.

Uh-huh.

It's stressful.

Tiffany (08:29.377)
Mm.

Kat (08:32.378)
being able like I'm like I can afford Christmas presents this year, you know. I couldn't for like three years. So and I feel like I'm okay at something again, or I didn't, you know. So anyway, that's who I am. I'm a writer. I am working on an actual piece of fiction again for the first time in a long time. yes, it is an anti fa erotic fiction. So you know like

Tiffany (08:35.468)
Yes.

Tiffany (08:45.484)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (08:53.085)
Yay. That's exciting.

Tiffany (09:00.896)
Okay.

Kat (09:01.786)
You know, A Court of Thorns and Roses. Haven't read it, bought it, haven't read it. Heard it's like the worst writing ever done. so I am writing like a noir detective Faye novel, kind of anti. Yes. I've act I two Sundays ago I sat down and wrote five chapters. So yeah, if y'all wanna

Tiffany (09:05.89)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (09:21.835)
You told me about this, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (09:27.543)
My gosh.

Kat (09:30.246)
test read it, let me know, but it needs a lot of work. But it's happening. Anyway, so that's who I am now.

Tiffany (09:32.673)
That's awesome. No, but Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, and I was yeah, pfft. I'm totally different. I decided I have gone back. I've greened up my life. I suppose. Not in always, but yeah, switched careers completely and I'm trying to build a native landscaping business.

Kat (09:37.806)
And I write for healthcare marketing.

Kat (09:43.204)
Yes. You have gone back to the green earth.

Kat (09:48.912)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (10:02.784)
If that that's one way to describe it. It's not really what it's gonna be. But I haven't decided I haven't figured it out yet, so I'm building it as We sure are. We sure are. They do turn into mush, don't they? Hmm.

Kat (10:09.668)
Yep, we're caterpillars in the cocoon. We are the mush. We are the mush.

Mm-hmm. Scientists cannot explain how it happens. Apparently. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (10:20.801)
That is interesting 'cause that is how I feel. I love that.

Kat (10:25.627)
Be the mush.

Tiffany (10:26.559)
Yeah, it's okay to be mush to be mushy.

Kat (10:29.552)
And I know that most of our listeners probably are in a similar mushy vein, so

Tiffany (10:34.281)
Yeah, I think the state of things just nobody knows what's gonna happen.

Kat (10:40.494)
Even Aeron just quit a job that wasn't serving him. He's retired military now. I'm very proud of him, but he's like gone on road trips. He doesn't know if he's gonna get another job. He tried it he tried a civilian job and it was like this fuck exactly

Tiffany (10:44.747)
Yeah.

Tiffany (10:49.664)
Wow.

Tiffany (10:55.846)
Ugh, it sure can.

Kat (10:57.454)
Yeah. So live off that VA retirement, babe. Good on you. I'm proud of you.

Tiffany (11:02.411)
Yeah, totally. Yeah. Ca yeah, 'cause you only get so many days in your life. So it's it's scary.

Kat (11:09.39)
It's true. I still consider him young. He's like three years younger than me. I'm like he's so young, he's like forty one, you know. Has a baby.

Tiffany (11:15.905)
He's a baby. Yeah, it's yeah. I mean, pfft if you don't do it today, you know, you might never, so

Kat (11:25.636)
I like being a teenager in my forties. That's fun.

Tiffany (11:29.695)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that is what it feels like.

Kat (11:30.86)
Way better than the first time around. Yeah.

Tiffany (11:34.495)
is what it feels like. So yeah, that's where we are.

Kat (11:36.73)
But yeah, that's so sorry if we're

Inconsistent, which is out of character for us because we are both Order Muppet, ADHD, Plan Everything Girls. And we have just both I think we both kind of like not gonna contact her about the fact that we said we were gonna start on October. Like I'm gonna take a nap. So I think we're both on the same page. We did need naps. So but thank you for listening, folks out there. who are probably also time blind ADHD.

Tiffany (11:47.553)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Tiffany (11:56.917)
Yeah.

Tiffany (12:01.749)
We needed naps, yeah. Totally.

Yeah.

Tiffany (12:12.192)
Very possible. Yes.

Kat (12:12.774)
Cocoon members. So tonight, okay, we're in a Halloween theme. I'm wearing my Banshee Labyrinth from Edinburgh. It's my most Halloween themed shirt. We're talking about pumpkins tonight, okay? The perennial favorite patron fruit of spooky season. So where do they come from? Why are they associated with Halloween? Are they sustainable? Our big question.

Tiffany (12:22.93)
Nice, I love that. Right.

Tiffany (12:32.476)
Mm.

Tiffany (12:39.72)
Yeah.

Kat (12:41.678)
And what should you do with them when you're done with them? So I took a lot of notes. And I'm sure that the AI history podcast you listen to before you fall asleep will have different information. Cause I have argued in my head with the one that I have been listening to. But okay, so where do pumpkins come from? History. My jam. The word pumpkin appears to come from an Americanization.

Tiffany (12:44.152)
Uh-huh.

Tiffany (12:57.803)
Yeah, well.

Tiffany (13:03.028)
Yeah.

Kat (13:09.462)
English Americanization of the French pompon, which was taken from the Greek pepon, which means large melon. So it also sounds like the French word for pepper. So just it's a big fruit with seeds in it, right?

Tiffany (13:19.212)
Tiffany (13:22.869)
Okay.

Uhhuh. It's a fruit. 'Cause it has seeds. We've we went over this. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Kat (13:28.228)
Yeah. It has seeds. We went over this, yes. An alternative theory, and then I'm just reading from a one of my sources, which we'll post in the show notes. pumpkin came from the Massachusetts words popukun, meaning grows forth round. So that's another possibility. This term could have been used by the Wampanoag people who speak the Wampanoag dialect of Massachusetts when introducing pumpkins to English pilgrims at Plymouth Colony.

Tiffany (13:44.072)
Okay. Okay.

Kat (13:56.741)
Located in present day Massachusetts, this is just straight from Wikipedia here. the English word squash is derived from a Massachusetts word Ascota Squash or in the closely related Narcansett language, Ascotawash. So I think in English a lot we're always like, it was the French and it's like, No, it was Native American and like eighteenth and nineteenth century historians were like, We can't speak Native American here. It's gotta be the French. But

Tiffany (13:59.819)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (14:11.083)
Okay.

Tiffany (14:19.347)
Yeah.

Kat (14:26.02)
When it boils down to it, there is no real scientific definition of a pumpkin. I found this interesting. There it's just a bunch of winter squash varieties from the genus Kirkubita, although most of us associate the big orange bulbous squash with the term pumpkin. Pumpkin can mean you can feel free to pumpkin anything. Like any th any squash that grows in the fall and winter, that's your pumpkin. You're fine.

Tiffany (14:31.39)
Uh-huh. That is.

Tiffany (14:44.374)
Ha.

Tiffany (14:53.94)
Whoa. Okay.

Kat (14:54.778)
When somebody's like, That's not a pumpkin, you're wrong. There's no scientific definition of pumpkin. Just like there's no scientific definition of a vegetable, okay? Feel free. Feel free. Call whatever you want a pumpkin. Ladies and gentlemen. My niece is a pumpkin, so

Tiffany (14:59.123)
Okay.

Okay, I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have like five pumpkins on my front porch and they're actually squashes.

Kat (15:14.686)
so most authorities, like there's pumpkin authorities, of course there are. They place the large orange fruit sold for autumn decoration in the species Curcubita maxima, let's shorten that to C maxima, and assign winter squash as a common name to the other two species. Interestingly, the canned product sold for making pumpkin pies is actually C moscata, which is a species of winter squash.

Tiffany (15:18.919)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (15:30.092)
Mm.

Kat (15:43.044)
So those pumpkins you buy at the store to make a jack-o'-lantern out of not the same stuff they make the pumpkin mash out of that you make a pie. FYI.

Tiffany (15:45.288)
huh.

Tiffany (15:51.998)
Okay. I did know that there are certain ones that you're supposed to eat and certain ones that aren't really like I don't know if they're not edible.

Kat (15:59.143)
It's not that they're not edible, they're not as delicious. So decorative varieties, not as delicious. You can.

Tiffany (16:01.408)
That's what yeah. Okay.

Tiffany (16:05.933)
'Cause you can like buy a baking pumpkin, but it's probably the same stuff as it's in the can, I'm guessing. Or similar. Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah.

Kat (16:12.59)
I think so. I haven't looked at the label and I don't know. They're d like they just sell us orange stuff. It might not be delicious. I don't know. I mean it might just all be butternut squash and we don't know.

Tiffany (16:22.283)
Right.

Kat (16:24.144)
So anyway, C pepo pumpkins are among the oldest known domesticated plants because Latin America domesticated so many plants. There is evidence of their cultivation dating between seven thousand BCE and fifty-five thousand BCE in Mesoamerica. So south of where I am. They've been a wild. There are wild spear s species of cucurbr cucurbita.

Tiffany (16:31.595)
Wow.

Tiffany (16:36.009)
Yeah.

Tiffany (16:45.096)
Okay. So they've been around for a long time.

Kat (16:52.932)
And the earliest domesticated species are native to North America. So northeastern Mexico and the southern United States. By the way, Mexico is still in North America, you weirdo.

Tiffany (16:59.414)
Ever.

R

Kat (17:04.4)
There are cultivars now grown globally you can grow anywhere there's sunlight, basically, for culinary, decorative, and other culturally specific purposes, meaning Halloween has spread.

Tiffany (17:09.833)
Yeah.

Tiffany (17:15.444)
Yes, yes.

Kat (17:17.454)
I just took this from another okay. Archaeologic archaeological evidence suggests that pumpkins and winter squash are native to the Americas, from the southwestern part of what is now the US, through Mexico and Central America, and south into Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. So that's pretty wide range. they rival with maze, aka corn, if you're an English speaking American, one of the oldest known crops in the Western hemisphere.

Tiffany (17:26.792)
Okay.

Okay. Cool, yeah.

Tiffany (17:39.295)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (17:47.05)
You said it rivals it? Interesting.

Kat (17:48.571)
Yes, there are about there's some say that like maybe thirty five hundred BC. So I mean that goes with the corns, beans and squash that we all know, the the the three sisters that you grow together to make a complete protein, which you should all learn because when we're farming our own food in the next ten years Yeah.

Tiffany (17:54.282)
Okay.

Yeah, true, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (18:07.772)
Yeah, when we're forced to

Kat (18:11.918)
There are stories of Native Americans roasting long strips of pumpkin on an open fire and then eating them or drying the strips and wi w wiping them into mattes. So I don't know if you've ever carved a pumpkin. There's a lot of fiber in there. So they're worth more than just food, right? They have all kinds of properties. So in my notes I said, and then came the British.

Tiffany (18:24.909)
huh. Yes, yes.

Cool. Mm-hmm. That's awesome.

Tiffany (18:38.059)
boy.

Kat (18:40.11)
So one way British colonists are thought to have prepared pumpkins was to slice off their tops, remove the seeds, and refill the inside with a mixture of milk, spices, and honey. Pumpkin spice latte, girls. The OG. This resultant concoction was baked in hot ashes and is said to be the origin of our modern.

Tiffany (18:52.361)
Yes. huh.

Tiffany (19:02.747)
Whoa, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kat (19:04.59)
Maybe. I don't know. Nobody knows, because all the English were just so busy starving to death, you know, in the first colonies that they're like, what do I do with this? There was a seventeenth century colonial poem that said For pottage and puddings and custard and pies are pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies. We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon. If it were not for pumpkins, we should be undoon.

Tiffany (19:13.075)
Yeah. huh.

Tiffany (19:33.444)
wow. I love that. Dang.

Kat (19:35.364)
That's from sixteen thirty. But take it with a grain of salt because British settlers in America were complete idiots and they're like, We're going to grow British crops here and it was like the native people had to be like, Ye, you're gonna starve to death and so in any case, I know, right?

Tiffany (19:43.115)
Mm.

Tiffany (19:50.954)
Yeah.

Und is my favorite.

Kat (19:59.639)
It was kind of a starvation food for early British settlers, from what I can tell. they were obviously the the decorative pumpkins we know today today are not really what people were eating. In the eighteen hundreds, they were primarily used to feed livestock, right? So pumpkins kind of kinda like lobster or oysters were like common people food until they picked up again.

Tiffany (20:04.341)
Okay.

Tiffany (20:13.344)
Yeah.

Tiffany (20:19.488)
okay. Okay.

Tiffany (20:25.96)
Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Kat (20:29.314)
So I'm looking at my notes like I have so much about pumpkins here. I'm gonna do one more thing and then we're going to take a break. But the question why are pumpkins associated with Halloween?

Tiffany (20:37.691)
I'm impressed.

Tiffany (20:41.515)
Okay.

Kat (20:48.346)
This won't surprise you. What do you think it is?

Tiffany (20:49.867)
Okay, I don't have a I was gonna say

Kat (20:58.17)
Don't think so hard.

Tiffany (20:58.559)
They they're orange. I don't know. I have no idea.

Kat (21:02.244)
Well, I think orange came because of pumpkins. They ripen in the fall. So they're a Halloween crop. That's it. It's the right time of year, right? Don't think too hard. W okay, well I'll explain that. So they tend to be planted in the early summer and ripen in late September or October.

Tiffany (21:04.434)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (21:12.387)
okay. And they're easy to carve, yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kat (21:26.178)
So the reason we use them for jack-o' lanterns is basically because they're easier to carve than turnips.

Tiffany (21:33.543)
Interesting. Okay.

Kat (21:34.151)
Okay, I'm gonna take you through Jack-O'Lanterns. Okay. Jack o' lanterns originated in Ireland, where according to Irish myth, a notorious character by the name of Stingy Jack tricked the devil on many occasions, much to the devil's annoyance, and when Stingy Jack died, he appeared at the gates of hell to learn his eternal fate, and the devil, having been fooled by him so many times, refused to let him enter. So Stingy Jack

Tiffany (22:02.644)
I love that.

Kat (22:04.28)
was sent off into the dark night with a burning lump of coal to guide his way.

Tiffany (22:08.63)
Okay. Hot, but yeah. Burney, okay.

Kat (22:10.882)
Yeah, well, you know probably nothing. According to legend, Jack put the glowing coal into a hollowed-out turnip and has been roaming the earth ever since. So big thing happened in nineteenth century, potato famine. So a bunch of Irish immigrants come to America. Well, the United States, let's be let's be specific here. The United States. They continued their tradition of making jack-o' lanterns.

Tiffany (22:19.915)
Ha. Okay.

Tiffany (22:34.878)
Yeah.

Kat (22:40.166)
Because Jack of the Lantern, that's stingy Jack. But they found pumpkins much easier to carve than turnips. They're like, hey, America's great. I got a pumpkin. The association of Jack-o-Lanterns with Halloween is related to the Celtic festival of Celtic Festival of Sawan. Not Sam Hain, Sawin. So this is observed on October 31st. This is the Celtic equivalent to our New Year, New Year's Eve.

Tiffany (22:41.919)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (22:59.795)
Yeah.

Kat (23:09.594)
The Celts believe the spirits of the dead, including Stingy Jack, roamed the earth on that night. So the Irish came through and were like pumpkin, yes, turnip. Hard, dense pumpkin. Hollow. So they just swapped it over. Yeah, so that's the mid to late eighteen hundreds, right?

Tiffany (23:15.998)
Okay.

Tiffany (23:25.695)
Better. Yeah.

Tiffany (23:29.802)
That's awesome.

Kat (23:35.8)
After World War Two, Halloween became the family friendly festival we think of now, which basically is when Irish people stopped being those dirty immigrants and started being like really I mean, you can watch the cultural progression.

Tiffany (23:49.289)
Yeah, it's insane.

Kat (23:51.589)
Then consumerism took over so decorative pumpkins outpaced the more edible varieties in terms of cultivation. Okay. So that's where we're gonna take our break.

Tiffany (23:56.859)
Interesting. Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Kat (24:04.078)
Let's do it. Jack o stingy jack.

Tiffany (24:06.741)
Didn't you check?

Kat (24:21.454)
Okay, it did that wild thing where it slowed down halfway through. It's on it sounded very well, it's probably my internet connection is shit now. Apparently Google is like throttling me, but I'm gonna finish my cocktail and we're gonna get into because we are a green living podcast, are there any eco issues about pumpkins we should be aware of? Cheers.

Tiffany (24:23.77)
Did it? It didn't do that to me. My internet connected to Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (24:40.614)
Yeah, I'm curious. Well, I feel like I know well, I can name one right off the bat is people throw in the trash. I feel like that's the biggest one.

Kat (24:45.956)
Well okay, what do you think? Okay.

Right. Right. But a thing we've talked about is farming in America or the US, I should be specific. Large scale pumpkin farming isn't great for the environment. But it's a monoculture, again. Farming for decorative purposes. Right?

Tiffany (24:59.441)
Uh-huh.

Tiffany (25:05.19)
Okay. That doesn't shock me. Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (25:11.858)
Yeah, they take up so much space also. Yeah. Cause I I planted pumpkins in my garden, just mini pumpkins, because Charlie wanted to, and I was like, I'm not doing this again, 'cause they took up like half the garden and then the groundhogs ate So it's like, okay, great.

Kat (25:15.256)
And water. Yeah. So it's not

Kat (25:28.142)
Yeah. When I tried to plant pumpkins I only had males and no females sprouted, so yeah. So there's a whole thing with that. But f when you are farming pumpkins though, it's just for decorative purposes generally. But okay. It's not exceptionally harmful, right? Like

Tiffany (25:34.315)
yeah, you said that.

Yeah.

Tiffany (25:43.582)
Yeah.

Kat (25:50.245)
I mean it just factory farming in general. All of our beef of the factory farming stands. It is interesting to note that most of our pumpkin farming is for the decorative varieties in the United States, right? Not food farming. Okay. Pumpkin production is widely dispersed. Okay, this is from a USDA website, okay? Pumpkin production is widely dispersed throughout the US, with crop conditions varying by region, obviously. All US states

Tiffany (25:52.723)
Yeah.

Tiffany (26:01.542)
Okay. Yeah.

Kat (26:20.038)
Produce pumpkins.

Tiffany (26:23.135)
Huh.

Kat (26:23.898)
Yep. The top five states produce nearly three quarters of the twenty twenty five crop, okay? Every year the USDA surveys the top pumpkin producing states and publishes the data the following year. This is important shit. I don't know if they're still doing it, but the USDA is following those pumpkins, okay? Fuck your milk, fuck your cyclosporal lettuce. Pumpkins, we got.

Tiffany (26:40.061)
Yeah.

Tiffany (26:47.078)
Yeah. Screw worm or whatever, great, but

Kat (26:50.39)
sure. Let them fend for themselves. Let the farmers eat cake. But pumpkins, the important things for the live, laugh, love community. We got pumpkins. Okay, so in 2025, total US pumpkin production reached 1.47 billion pounds, which is four percent up from twenty twenty four, but seven percent below the twenty twenty two three year average. I don't know.

Tiffany (26:59.753)
Yeah.

Tiffany (27:14.738)
interesting.

Kat (27:16.624)
Farmers in the top five pumpkin producing states harvested close to one point five billion pounds of pumpkins combined. The leading pumpkin states were Illinois, California, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Tiffany (27:24.188)
Well

Tiffany (27:33.426)
Okay. Three of those are s close together, kinda, but Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah.

Kat (27:34.842)
Those are wildly different climates, but pumpkins are I mean they're an American crop, right? And then that's a again, no scientific specification for what pumpkin means here. Those are decorative gourds as far as I can tell. In twenty twenty two, about eighty five percent of pumpkin production was for decorative varieties.

Tiffany (27:47.366)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (27:55.645)
Okay. Hm.

Kat (27:57.701)
And about forty four percent of American households had at least one person visit a fall pumpkin patch in twenty twenty three.

Tiffany (28:04.309)
How what percentage? Okay. Yeah, we went to one, so

Kat (28:06.16)
Forty four percent. A little less than half. Of course. We went to I haven't been in one in a couple of years. So visiting a pumpkin patch is officially called agro tourism, FYI. And it makes you an agro tourist.

Tiffany (28:12.39)
Okay.

Tiffany (28:17.734)
Uhhuh. Yeah. Yes, I see that fully. Yeah, yeah. It's yeah, 'cause I mean, we just went to a farm and this farm was awesome because they didn't charge and they were close. They didn't charge you like a twenty five dollar ticket or whatever. Which I would I think they should, to be honest, but

Kat (28:22.798)
You're welcome. Yeah. Welcome to agro tourism.

Kat (28:30.768)
Yes. Yep.

And then ten dollars to

I they don't have to.

Tiffany (28:41.488)
Well th this one doesn't and it somehow survives. But then okay, I'm curious, yeah.

Kat (28:44.474)
So okay, I'm gonna break that down for you in a second here, but Yeah. I love a

I love a pumpkin aesthetic. It's just like it's ninety degrees in Texas. Ladies and gentlemen, your pumpkin patch is a sweat fest. Like

Tiffany (28:54.282)
Mm.

Tiffany (29:01.18)
Well, have you ever tried to carve it when it's hot out? Okay. I didn't know that that was a thing, but we did early and then it got up to ninety here and then pumpkins melted.

Kat (29:05.026)
Uh-huh.

Kat (29:13.156)
Yeah, we carve it on the day of. I carved one jack-o'-lantern just because I'm weirdly superstitious, even though I'm an atheist. Yes. Our pumpkins I bought last year a week early melted on the front porch. Before we carved them. Yes. It is hot in Texas. Yeah. Texas is not pumpkin country. I probably should carve a longhorn steer, I don't know.

Tiffany (29:17.714)
Okay. Lesson learned. Okay.

Tiffany (29:27.014)
And you didn't even carve them? holy sh

Tiffany (29:39.954)
Just carbon steak.

Kat (29:41.807)
I should probably have marigolds and Texas is northern Mexico, okay? Let's be honest. They are the same climate. Montere I w I visited Monterey a couple weeks ago and went to the state museum of Mont of of Nuevo León and they're like Texas is economically so tied to Nuevo León and and this manufacturing corridor and

Tiffany (29:47.375)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (30:11.376)
Climate wise and everything, and like oil and gas and like their histories. And I was just like, man, fuck Texas. Like we have a rich cultural history that we just ignore by being like, well, they're Mexican. And it and like, I'm from New Mexico, and I get that New Mexico has a completely different history. This is I was just like, my family is from Texas. And it's like white Texans who moved here from Tennessee like in the 1830s.

Tiffany (30:33.16)
Yeah.

Kat (30:40.504)
And like that is part of this cultural experience that like you cannot separate Canada, the United States, and Mexico without real problems. We are a blend of so many latitudes and it is so stupid. It is so stupid. Texas is especially central Texas and southern Texas are culturally Mexican from a

Tiffany (30:50.834)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (30:56.157)
Yeah.

Tiffany (31:00.311)
Yeah.

Kat (31:07.69)
long standing tradition of thousands of years of native peoples with Spanish influence and it's wild to me how much we try to separate ourselves. Anyway, rant

Tiffany (31:15.547)
Yeah. Although at this point Mexico might be happy to be separated. They're like, cool. You do you.

Kat (31:22.406)
But they can't They are, I mean politically they are, but but economically, the the factories it's like it is so short sighted to not understand how like Nuevo Leon and Monterey is such a huge manufacturing center that is so intertwined with like auto production and and the economy of southern Texas and

Tiffany (31:27.538)
Well, yeah, I know.

Kat (31:50.233)
and all of Texas is so tied to that like it's so insane to be like, nah, we're cutting off Mexico. And it's like, well, we're not really, because you have so much work between the the borders. It's anyway, I'm not a business person. But anyway, let's get back to pumpkins. So

Tiffany (32:04.529)
Right.

Kat (32:11.364)
Here's the thing. Pumpkin patches are big moneymakers. According to the hustle, that's one of my sources. A small time producer can sell pumpkins to the public at about five times the rate of wholesale pumpkin sales. Okay? So if you are wholesaling your pumpkins to a grocery store chain, you could make five times that just selling to

Tiffany (32:16.167)
Yeah.

Tiffany (32:22.266)
Mm.

Tiffany (32:29.458)
Okay.

Tiffany (32:37.991)
Hundred percent believe it.

Kat (32:38.838)
Jane Hoya, who is going to your pumpkin patch on a two on a Saturday with her child. A pumpkin patch owner using okay, using 2020 data. So that's six years old now. You could basically invest about four thousand per acre in seeds, bees, you gotta buy your bees, because they don't just naturally make bees now, they're store bought for pollination. Workers, etcetera, or about three

Tiffany (32:41.705)
Mm.

Tiffany (32:50.429)
Yeah.

Tiffany (32:56.723)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (33:05.07)
you can make about 3,000 jack-o'-lantern pumpkins per acre. So those are those orange pumpkins we're talking about. By harvest time, about three-quarters of the pumpkins will be sellable to the public because there's, you know, the ones who don't mature because it's nature, etc., or they're not round or whatever. So that's at least four dollars per pumpkin. It's probably seven dollars per pumpkin now. This is six years ago. We're talking about post-COVID Trump.

Tiffany (33:10.503)
Okay. Yeah.

Tiffany (33:21.481)
Mm.

Yeah, or they get eaten.

Tiffany (33:32.114)
Yeah.

Kat (33:34.725)
Era inflation, seven dollars per pumpkin. You can make in 2020 you could make $9,000 in revenue per acre. So that's the when you account for costs, that's between $1,500 to $5,000 in revenue after costs, right? So you invest $4,000 in seeds, work, et cetera. You can make up to $9,000. So

Tiffany (33:36.157)
Yeah.

Tiffany (34:01.607)
That's really not very much.

Kat (34:03.77)
Fifty per acre? How many acres do you have?

Tiffany (34:07.236)
Well, I'm thinking of this farm I went to and they probably had two acres max. I mean it's eighteen thousand, but I'm thinking I mean, I guess if that's not your entire revenue, but like in this day and age per month you said?

Kat (34:12.038)
That's still ten thousand dollars?

Kat (34:18.328)
Right. No, this is just within a month. You can make up to ten thousand dollars in pumpkin revenue, right?

Tiffany (34:26.695)
Yeah. I guess. Yeah.

Kat (34:29.382)
They're big moneymakers. So more than 80% of these pumpkins just end up in the trash is the issue, right? Because they're decorative. That's over one billion pounds in landfills where they cannot de decompose because they're in plastic. As we all know. Like we've talked about landfills. Ghost are upset about landfills. So a lot of pumpkins that just sit there.

Tiffany (34:41.577)
That's insane.

Tiffany (34:47.187)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (34:53.656)
Also, because of climate change and rising diesel prizes, the price of pumpkins has gone up. So you used to pay like two bucks for a big old porch pumpkin and this year they're anywhere like I looked at Walmart, whatever. Anywhere for like a standard jack-o' lantern pumpkin is five twenty to six fifty. So sss

Tiffany (34:55.529)
Mm.

Tiffany (35:12.837)
Okay. And that's cheap like compared to the farm prices. You're paying per pound there. Mm hmm.

Kat (35:16.822)
Yes, because you're you're paying for the experience. Yes, that too. and again, like they said, wholesale pumpkins are cheaper to sell than you can sell to direct to the consumer for a pumpkin patch and make five times as much. So I think we bought a couple pumpkins and they were like the big ones were seven fifty and the little ones were like four fifty. Like and it's so wild to me. We bought three pumpkins.

Tiffany (35:24.987)
Yeah.

Tiffany (35:29.67)
Yeah.

Tiffany (35:43.461)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (35:44.77)
Stacking your porch with pumpkins is such a flex right now. Like, I don't even need to eat these, right?

Tiffany (35:48.657)
It's so true. Yeah. Or I don't even eat groceries. I just got all the pumpkins. I can't afford We don't need food. Who needs to eat? Yeah.

Kat (35:54.049)
I just got decorative gourds, motherfuckers. Yeah. No. We don't eat, we're on Osimpic, it's fine.

The children on a zip today. Anyway, yeah, it's so it's weird. I don't know. I love pumpkins, but okay. So what can you do with a Halloween pumpkin when you're done with it? Okay. There are lots of things you can do with those decorative pumpkins once Halloween is over. Or even before if it melts on your porch like mine did. Pumpkins that have been turned into jack-o' lanterns should be composted. Let's just get that straight.

Tiffany (36:12.015)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Me too.

Yeah.

Tiffany (36:23.218)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (36:31.644)
Yes.

Kat (36:33.924)
Do not try to cook them.

Tiffany (36:36.489)
God do people God Yeah and I think there's where we were Yeah

Kat (36:39.51)
Yes. People are insane. They will probably be rotting anyway, because it's gonna be ninety degrees wherever you are in America right now, but they should go into the compost. They also probably are covered in soot if you put a candle in You Okay, well that's my next thing. You can leave them out for your neighborhood critters, like if you have squirrels and stuff. But that invites neighborhood critters, so

Tiffany (36:49.863)
Yeah.

Yeah. And God knows what animals and bugs and okay.

Yeah.

Right. Mine didn't get eaten. We tried that and it just sat there and then rotted. I'm like, okay. They're like, This is not good enough for us.

Kat (37:05.592)
Yeah, they're like, this has been Yeah. Compost it. Yeah, if you've had a candle burning inside of it, just also I think animals can sense the spirit of stingy jack, so they're like, absolutely not. Okay. If you have been pump if you have pumpkins that have been sitting on your front porch and haven't been nibbled by critters because that was another thing, we have squirrels who just eat the faces or like possum.

Tiffany (37:13.927)
Yeah.

Tiffany (37:18.981)
There you go, there you go.

Tiffany (37:28.071)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (37:32.667)
Yes. Deer it'll eat yeah.

Kat (37:35.374)
Yeah, okay. So there's a couple things you can do. Check with a local farm that has livestock or a neighbor with chickens. Pumpkins are great feed for animal animals. That's what they were used for in the eighteen hundreds, right? Our local pig rescue accepts pumpkins to give to the pigs. So the Central Texas farm rescue has a pig option.

Tiffany (37:43.368)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (37:48.337)
Right.

Tiffany (37:54.781)
That's so cute.

That's a really good idea. We have so many friggin' farms around here. That's a great idea.

Kat (38:01.242)
Yeah, but it's vegetable matter, as long as they're not rotting, you haven't carved you can donate But people chickens too peop chickens love

Tiffany (38:07.816)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (38:12.687)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Kat (38:14.98)
You can leave them out in the garden to act as a food source for animals throughout the winter. Go squirrels go. I wouldn't because my dogs and the squirrels would get into I don't know, it's a whole thing.

Tiffany (38:17.319)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Tiffany (38:27.32)
Yeah, plus t I would recommend taking the seeds out or else you were gonna have a whole lot of pumpkins the next year.

Kat (38:32.679)
Well that's the thing. Yeah, you will have a naturally pumpkined

Tiffany (38:36.166)
Unless you want a bunch of pumpkins, but they do grow quite large, so

Kat (38:40.324)
Well, unless they don't get fertilized like mine. I don't know. Maybe I should let the squirrels eat the pumpkins this year. And be like, I just want to grow pumpkins. you can reuse them for decoration for Thanksgiving.

Tiffany (38:43.162)
Yeah, true. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (38:53.242)
Yeah. I usually leave mine out until like frickin' January, so Yeah.

Kat (38:55.856)
Dude, I would too. Unless they freeze. Yeah. if it hasn't been carved and it's in good condition, just keep using it. Until they rot, they're great. They're so great. They're so hardy. Forever. Yeah. compost. Either if you have the commercial bin like I do in Austin, or if you have a com home bin like you do. Great for the compost.

Tiffany (39:02.202)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah. They last for a long time. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (39:18.778)
Yep. Yeah, and we also have like you could just take it to our compost well, our dump basically, and they have like a bin for so

Kat (39:28.26)
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of option like people don't know about, but Okay. These are the weirder ones. You can make pumpkin puree. Roasting the seeds I do every year. I always burn them by accident, but you can roast

Tiffany (39:41.636)
No, I can never get them. They're always chewy.

Kat (39:45.041)
Okay, mine burn. I mean maybe you just have to set the seed up h like basically you just rinse them, get all the pulp off that you can, put on I would say parchment paper. a little bit of olive oil and then like Yeah, four fifty. Four hundred, four fifty. Twenty minutes max. See, that's my thing, I always burn So I love roasted pumpkin seeds. This is one of my favorite things.

Tiffany (39:46.619)
Okay.

Tiffany (39:52.686)
Uh-huh.

Yeah, I tried. May not have been hot enough or something. Okay.

Tiffany (40:05.56)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. No, it's delicious, yeah.

Kat (40:13.508)
But to puree them, you have to note that decorative pumpkins will likely be more stringy and less flavorful than the canned pumpkin you're used to. They are still edible. Even decorative pumpkins are edible. if you bake the pumpkin and puree it to make pumpkin pie, it will likely be much wetter than the canned stuff that you're used to. So be prepared to strain. there's so I just watched somebody make a pumpkin soup and a pumpkin and it like totally failed.

Tiffany (40:20.25)
Uhhuh. Right. Okay. Okay.

Tiffany (40:34.34)
okay. Good to know.

Kat (40:42.65)
But you can because it just leaked all over. You can do all kinds of things with p I've like one of my favorite restaurants in DC or the DC suburbs when my parents were living there and I was there was like this Afghan restaurant that made like roasted pumpkin curry. It was so good.

Tiffany (40:46.878)
no.

Tiffany (41:02.086)
my god. There used to be a Thai restaurant in DC that did I wish I remembered the name. Everybody knows it. But it's like they had miniature pumpkins and they would do a curry. heaven. Literal heaven. Just coconut melk and so good.

Kat (41:14.682)
Just coconut milk and pumpkin, like like if you think a pumpkin spice latte is good, you're not getting pumpkin at all. Like I I make like basically pumpkin pie mix without the egg and like put that on lattes. Like condensed milk, pumpkin puree, all the spices.

Tiffany (41:29.178)
Mm.

Okay.

Tiffany (41:36.391)
Yeah.

Kat (41:37.734)
Throw it in a latte. That's a pumpkin and you get the fiber and you get there's molasses in it. It's delicious. And yeah, but you can have savory pumpkin. Like pumpkin is silver stuff.

Tiffany (41:39.087)
Yeah, yum.

Tiffany (41:44.719)
Nice.

Tiffany (41:48.389)
Yes, yeah.

Kat (41:50.215)
smaller pumpkins tend to be the best for pies and pureees. F right. That's why they Yes. Tie Crossing. Okay. Okay. Folks in DC, is it still there?

Tiffany (41:54.898)
Tie Crossing. I just remembered. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. It was so I don't know if they're still there. They're so good. I don't know, but if it is, you gotta go. Yeah.

Kat (42:04.26)
Alright, folks in DC, let us know. but like the little they call the little pies pumpkin pies or pie pumpkins. So those are the the most delicious. The orange ones. Anyway. All pumpkin seeds can be roasted and eaten. All of them. No matter what your pumpkin is. Unless it specifically says AI generated toxic slop. I don't know. I don't know if they have those. But even the Warty pumpkins.

Tiffany (42:13.03)
okay.

Interesting. Okay.

Tiffany (42:22.17)
Okay. Okay.

Tiffany (42:33.7)
Okay. All right.

Kat (42:33.936)
Can be they can be eaten. Do without what you will. They're called knuckleheads They were grown by farmers for their decorative purposes, FYI just okay. So FYI decorative gourds will have a much harder exterior and aren't really suitable for human consumption. But your squirrels might love them.

Tiffany (42:38.811)
Yeah.

that's funny.

Yeah, they're very cool.

Tiffany (42:56.132)
Okay, good to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. Okay, cool.

Kat (43:01.456)
Maybe. So anyway, that's that's pumpkins.

Tiffany (43:05.49)
That's awesome. That was so fun. I loved learning the history. I had no frickin' clue.

Kat (43:10.2)
I it's funny to think like the way that America has worked that like pumpkins are now a like a prestige fruit but like a hundred and fifty years ago it was like, we feed them to the horses and now it's like No Braille needs seventeen pumpkins to take a photo You know? It's so funny. It's the same with lobsters, oysters. Braille now needs

Tiffany (43:20.121)
Yeah.

Tiffany (43:25.091)
Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (43:35.644)
Really?

Kat (43:40.538)
For their Instagram launch when they're four years old.

Tiffany (43:42.33)
Holy shit, that's good.

Kat (43:48.486)
I love Humgand.

Tiffany (43:48.636)
We don't mean to make f we we love Brailleys. If there's any Braille out there we love but that's pretty friggin' good. And you gotta know. Yeah, if you gotta you gotta know if you name your kid Braille. Anyway.

Kat (43:51.761)
yeah, hey Braylee. Thanks for listening, Braylee. Your mother loves you.

Kat (44:00.369)
They're not listening to nobody who named their kid Brayle. If you named your kid Brayle and you're listening to our podcast, like B-R-A-Y-L-E-I-G-H, you're not in the wrong spot. Reach out to us and let's have a conversation. We are that kind of girls, but your live, laugh, love, I'm sorry we're making fun of it. It's because it's targeted at us and we don't appreciate it.

Tiffany (44:02.404)
No.

You're in the wrong spot.

Tiffany (44:11.821)
Yeah, there you go. There you go. There you go.

Yeah.

But boy boy, is it true?

Kat (44:25.528)
I get tickled by a pumpkin patch, but only when it's done well.

Tiffany (44:29.709)
Yeah, agreed. This one that we went to was awesome, actually. They did such a good job. Well, it was just like well, it was free, which I appreciated, and again I wouldn't have minded paying because I feel like how else are these farms making their money? Good. I'm glad. So but they had this like I'm sure. But they had this whole like hay ride to

Kat (44:31.598)
And they s okay, tell me about this pumpkin patch.

Kat (44:44.9)
They make bank off their pumpkins, apparently. Yeah. And they probably do berry farming in the summer, but okay, go ahead. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (44:59.121)
Get to the pumpkin patch and it was long and it went through a stream and the kids were like screaming about going over the water. And it was just there were like no rules. You know, a lot of these places are kind of strict, like no dogs allowed, no this, no that. But this place was like, whatever. You know, like dogs everywhere. Yeah, it just seemed like they either haven't been tainted by people, you know, screwing them over by letting their dogs run with the sheep or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (45:03.756)
I'll bet. I'll bet.

Kat (45:15.024)
Like a legit farm. Yeah.

Kat (45:23.342)
Right. The reason we have no dogs is because the Pomeranian shat on the sheep yeah. Yeah. Yeah, some pipple. No, Piples don't bite. Let's be honest. It was a designer golden doodle who bit another child. Yeah. Okay.

Tiffany (45:29.186)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like bit the who knows?

No no no no. Yeah they don't. Yes, yes. Right, right. So for now anyway, it's fantastic 'cause it just feel it feels like lighter and like less there's still a lot of people, but it just felt like less stressful for some reason.

Kat (45:53.189)
All the pumpkin patches here in Austin obviously are curated for Instagram influencers who never left California or New York, so they've never like seen a farm. Yes. Like I I think that's a thing. The kind of American I am is like I was raised by people who really valued agriculture even though we didn't participate it. Like my grandfather was a country doctor, so what he did was supported rail railroads.

Tiffany (45:59.385)
Right. And this didn't feel like that, which I loved. Yeah.

Tiffany (46:17.87)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (46:23.002)
workers, you know, which isn't agriculture either, but it's still like a working class

Tiffany (46:24.347)
Right.

Tiffany (46:27.727)
Yeah, totally.

Kat (46:29.51)
And so, like, to make I don't know, we've been to it we try to be to we've tried to go to a couple.

Tiffany (46:34.341)
He probably delivered a sheep at in once in his life, like let's be honest.

Kat (46:38.618)
He was definitely like paid with sheep or something, you know. He had stories about that. But I mean he considered himself he was like he wanted a farm and he thought farming was like I'm speaking for a man who's been dead for thirty years, but you know, that was the height. But I think he I mean I

Tiffany (46:41.311)
there you go.

Tiffany (46:46.008)
Yeah, that's crazy.

Tiffany (46:51.557)
Mm.

Tiffany (46:56.495)
Well he can't he can't disagree, so

Kat (47:01.946)
My favorite picture of my grandfather is him standing in front of his corn that he grew in the front yard in Teague, Texas. And like he was so proud that he grew corn, even though he was a doctor. You know, like he thought farming was the height of

Tiffany (47:12.375)
that's awesome.

Kat (47:19.598)
intelligence, you know.

Tiffany (47:21.541)
Yeah. And it's so important and we do not

Kat (47:24.13)
I mean we I think it w is gonna become increasingly important as we realise how a food supply chain like I told Sean that he was Sean was like, what kind of vegetable do you want? And I like, Brussels sprouts And he went and he's like, There's no Brussels sprouts at the store and was like get used to it. We're living through the apocalypse. So figure out what vegetables will grow in your zone and how you can water them. And let's we're gonna read you

Tiffany (47:28.65)
yeah.

Tiffany (47:37.669)
Yeah, right.

Tiffany (47:42.179)
Uh-huh, huh.

Tiffany (47:46.991)
Yes. Uh-huh. Harvest some rainwater.

Kat (47:52.774)
We're gonna redo aquaculture. And if you can grow pumpkins, livestock love So

Tiffany (47:57.915)
There you go. We grew I think out of all of that we got like four little mini pumpkins. We they're still on the front porch. But those are the ones that the I did. And it was really cool. Charlie liked it. it was those were the ones that didn't get eaten by the groundhog.

Kat (48:07.0)
I love it. You grew pumpkins.

Kat (48:16.718)
At least the groundhog's eating. You're probably gonna have to eat the groundhog in the next two years, just FYI.

Tiffany (48:20.231)
No, not Birdie. I don't know. We don't have a name, but I don't know. Birdie the grandcom

Kat (48:24.89)
Bernie Bernie the groundhawk I love Bertie. Bernard, Bernie. I was like Bertie Bernie. That's okay. I've had a Manhattan. apparently it's Bernard.

Tiffany (48:31.207)
Bernard.

No, I did say Birdie. Yeah, yeah. But yeah. He's not he's not named yet, but one day. Yeah, there you go. We named him at one point on this podcast, but I do not remember what we said, yeah. Yeah, probably Harry, yeah.

Kat (48:45.56)
I think we did. It wasn't Harry Vetch is the only name or

No, Harry Vetch is the Victorian child who lives on my porch. Who's named after the ground cover that who hasn't been around lately.

Tiffany (48:53.945)
that's right. That's right, that's right, that's right. Of course that's your ghost. Yeah. These are all throwbacks. that's good. No ghost is better. Maybe on all Hollows Eve. You never know. Mhm.

Kat (49:06.372)
Well, okay, here's my question. So, do you have costumes and plans for Halloween?

Tiffany (49:11.107)
Yes. We well, I don't, but Charlie has flip flopped between a hundred different ideas and she found a sheep costume w that is so cute at the thrift store. That was too long ago. That was a whole full month ago. So that's been no. So that's been just ew, sheep. Yeah, for a second it was her favorite animal. Now her favorite animal is flying squirrels.

Kat (49:23.548)
Kat (49:29.68)
She won't ever remember. Yeah.

Shoot.

Tiffany (49:39.681)
So she's a flying squirrel. They're very cute, yeah. So she I know. So she's got like a whole flying squirrel get up, so yeah, it's gonna be fun. And she wants us to be acorns and I'm like, I don't know, dude. I don't know, dude.

Kat (49:40.154)
They are fancy. Okay. And dramatic. They go wheat a cape.

I love it.

Kat (49:57.275)
Maybe the idea of an acorn, you can wear like a hat. You're like Devo, you know, like

Tiffany (49:59.235)
Yeah, I was like, Right. Yeah, the only thing we could find were like berets, but I don't wanna buy two berets and then just have two berets that we never use, you know what I mean? Maybe I could find one at a thrift store or something, but I don't have that kind of time, so it is what it is.

Kat (50:05.84)
Yes.

Kat (50:15.696)
Might I I might find you a beret.

Tiffany (50:20.047)
Or yeah, or I was like we could probably make some kind of acorn hat out of paper. I don't know.

Kat (50:24.442)
Yeah. You could cardboard with little how hard can it be? And just wear brown and you're like, I'm an acorn. People be like, I get it. You just have to you have to give the idea of the costume. It's the thing. Like Sean is obsessing over his costume has to be perfect and I'm like, No. You people just have to be like, Like it doesn't have to be spot on. They have to like, yeah, you're such and such.

Tiffany (50:27.138)
Yeah. I'm sure there's a way

Yeah. Or like I'm I'm squirrel. Yeah.

Tiffany (50:41.496)
yeah, yeah.

huh, I see it.

Yeah, we could probably just splat an acorn printout on our shirts and then that would be plenty.

Kat (50:54.948)
I think if you cut out just a flat circle with the thing sticking out and like war brown and people are like, What are you? Like I'm an acorn. They're like, Yeah, you are.

Tiffany (51:00.783)
huh. Yeah.

Mm. I don't have brown, but I could find brown. I do have brown. I have enough brown. I have enough brown. Yeah, there's brown.

Kat (51:10.352)
Brown's easy. There's Brown.

Brown like this. Or even just like oatmeal, you know? I'm an acorn. Or black. You can wear black. Acorns can be black and red.

Tiffany (51:15.596)
Yeah. huh.

Yeah. Black acorns. Yeah. Black walnut. That's what I am. People will be like, this is too far. What about you? Are you dressing up? Nice.

Kat (51:25.328)
There you go. Bang.

Kat (51:30.488)
No, people don't care. Yeah, of course. We are burning Fozobra, which is my fake Zozobra, on Halloween this year. And my friend J Ray asked this was like getting asked to prom, which I never really was. So she's like, Do you wanna be the twins from The Shining?

Tiffany (51:37.518)
Uh-huh.

Tiffany (51:41.412)
nice.

Kat (51:56.485)
So we're gonna be the twins for The Shining. And I told her, I was like, well, I don't know if Sean wants to be a couples costume. He never wants to be a couples costume. Every time we come with a couples costume, we do it in August, and then we forget about it. So I was like, I gotta ask Sean, and she was like, Well, he could be Danny, the little boy. So I like texted him, and Sean was like, I'm in. So Sean's gonna be Danny, and we're gonna be.

Tiffany (51:56.71)
Awesome. That's amazing.

Tiffany (52:05.862)
Mm.

Yeah.

Tiffany (52:16.73)
Whoa.

Okay.

I d how how do you be Danny? Is there like a

Kat (52:25.362)
He found this the Apollo sweater. Apparently there's an Apollo sweater, so he bought the Apollo sweater.

Tiffany (52:29.222)
damn. Okay, I don't really remember, so

Kat (52:37.968)
fifteen dollars on Amazon and I'm not giving Jeff Bezos my money. And I don't have HBO Max. I should probably just But HBO Max is gonna be owned by fucking David Ellison anyway, so anyway, sorry Stephen King. I'm not watching your it's not even Stephen King. It's Cooper.

Tiffany (52:40.996)
Holy

Tiffany (52:53.004)
Yeah. The library might have it. They have D V D's. Well do you even have a D V D player? There you go.

Kat (52:56.452)
You're so right. Yes, I have a DVD player. It's how I watch twenty eight days later every two months. It's my favorite movie.

Tiffany (53:04.942)
There you go. Or like a thri not thrift, but like a used bookstore has like D V D's out the wazoo. You have two days, so this is no pressure.

Kat (53:10.959)
I'll bet I could find it.

I don't so it was to think Sean was like, I could be Jack and I was like, No, no one is being an adult from The Shining. Because to me, like I don't want anyone to be Shelley Duval. Yeah, I don't I don't want I wanted to be the innocent ones, you know? Like, we're being the children from The Shining, okay? 'Cause I am not cool with being the murderous adults this year. Yeah. It's an aesthetic, so

Tiffany (53:22.188)
Yeah. Well Jack is horrid, yeah.

Tiffany (53:31.749)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tiffany (53:38.956)
Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. Well yeah. Or even YouTube. Have you checked?

Kat (53:46.564)
Yeah, I I might I haven't looked. We're both like I get free YouTube through my phone plan, so like sometimes

Tiffany (53:53.388)
Okay. You probably don't even have to watch it either. Yeah, I feel like

Kat (53:56.689)
There's that. I think I've seen enough of it to get it. an fun story.

Kat (54:05.006)
Stephen King plagiarized my twins from the Shining, her one of her father's stories. So, we don't love Stephen King.

Tiffany (54:16.804)
Wait, your friend?

Kat (54:18.5)
So my friend who's also playing the other twin, the one who who asked me like prom to be, she has proof that Stephen King stole one of her father's stories in the sixties or seventies. So we have mixed feelings about Stephen King.

Tiffany (54:20.507)
Uh-huh.

Tiffany (54:24.557)
Uh-huh.

Tiffany (54:36.568)
Yeah, I'm shocked that she wanted to do the shining, but

Kat (54:38.916)
No, I mean it I mean this is like it's prom. Like we are both over forty and neither of us has ever been the twins from the shining. And I'm a twin and I've never been the twins from the shining, so we're being the twins from the shining. And I like

Tiffany (54:43.278)
Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (54:49.366)
Yeah, true.

That's amazing.

Yes, I love that. That'd be so fun. Please do send me pictures. No, me too.

Kat (54:56.473)
Anyway.

Kat (55:00.1)
I'll try. I am so bad at pictures, but

We're not digital girls. We're garden girls.

Tiffany (55:07.106)
Yeah. Garden girls. That could be my god. That could be the podcast name.

Kat (55:10.256)
Garden Kurs. That might be our new podcast, ladies and gentlemen. If and non binary folks if

Tiffany (55:17.176)
And it could have thank you for being a friend.

Kat (55:20.08)
Garden girl.

Tiffany (55:23.627)
my god, okay. Holy

Kat (55:26.15)
I'm gonna drink another Manhattan and marinade on this, but but could I just do the whole thing in this accent? Pumpkins are full of the live left love crowd, Braille.

Tiffany (55:30.061)
I love it.

Tiffany (55:38.438)
Yes. Riley. God, I love it. All right, cool. Well Yes.

Kat (55:40.934)
Braille. Well everyone take your little Brailleys to the pumpkin patch. do we have a CTA? 'Cause we're old marketing folks. The CTA is watch this space because we don't know what's happening. And neither do you. my CTA is fucking vote.

Tiffany (55:53.036)
Yeah. No.

god, yeah. Yes, please.

Kat (55:59.089)
Go vote. I don't even care who you vote for mostly, just vote.

Tiffany (56:04.662)
Mostly. But if you're listening to this, I don't think you're gonna be voting for

Kat (56:10.306)
I have a very strong suspicion that you're probably not gonna vote for Ken Paxton, who's a monster. But please vote.

Tiffany (56:18.832)
Yeah.

Yep, there we go. All right, well this has been long enough. Almost an hour. Cool. Well thank you so much. This was awesome. I think you're frozen. So there you are. You're not frozen anymore.

Kat (56:29.478)
Okay, it's an hour. All right.

Kat (56:36.962)
I'm not. You were for s okay. Okay. You were frozen to me, but it's definitely my internet because Google is throttling me because I vote blue. I don't know. Fuck Anyway. Conspiracies. Pumpkins!

Tiffany (56:40.152)
Okay. Okay.

Tiffany (56:46.031)
Probably, yeah. You talk about politics, they're like

Okay. We're still frozen, so I'm not sure how to end this.

Kat (56:51.662)
Yeah, they're like, this woman. happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween Happy Halloween Happy Halloween Can you hear me?

Tiffany (57:04.429)
Okay.

Tiffany (57:08.78)
are you back?

Kat (57:10.916)
Happy Halloween. I've been saying happy Halloween for ten minutes. I'm texting you.

Tiffany (57:15.109)
For some reason I can't hear you. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.

Kat (57:17.83)
there you go. That's how I want to end it.

Yes. Fuck the internet.

Tiffany (57:25.965)
Okay, perfect. All right, cool. Well, we will try to keep everybody posted on what's going on as we go. as we figure it out. So we will we will keep you posted on what's going on.

Kat (57:34.446)
We'll keep you updated. Yeah.

Kat (57:47.182)
All right, play the outro music.

Tiffany (57:47.653)
Okay. I think you're still frozen. You're probably you're probably s yeah. On the back end you're probably talking, but I just can't hear it. That's okay.

Okay. That yeah yeah yeah. yeah yeah yeah yeah okay. I did it. I did the music. All right. Thumb big thumbs up from Kat. That's all I see is a frozen thumbs up, but we will talk to you soon. There she is. There's her face. We will keep you posted and it'll be great. We will figure out what we're doing from here on out. All right. Bye.

Kat (58:32.615)
Good night, Daphne. Bye.