Last fall, I had a yard full of pumpkin vines but no pumpkins in site. My daughter wanted to plant them in the spring, but we got them out late so we knew it was a race against the clock. The vines were sprawling. They invaded a good-sized chunk of our back yard but didn’t look like they were doing much more than killing the grass.

However, I’m an optimist at heart, and I love my daughter so I let it go through October. By the day before Halloween, though, I thought it was time to give up the ghost, so to speak. If the vines hadn’t produced anything by now, it was game over.

My daughter was disappointed to say the least. She’d put all that time into planting, watering and checking on them for months, and by October she was emotionally invested.

I had to explain to her it just wasn’t in the cards. We’d have to try to again next year.

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