Owl O’Lantern

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I'm noticing a trend in my pumpkin carving choices the past few years. No mere human face or monster pumpkins, mine are all about sweet animals, it seems. Two years ago, it was a manatee. Barbara Manatee, to be exact.

I know, I know. A bit of a stretch.

Last year, it was a spider with brown pipe cleaner legs (and I can't find a photo of him, wah). I'm a minor arachnophobic, but he was pretty cute and surprisingly… accessible… for a spider. But then I'm biased – I created him, after all. (Pumpkin carving makes me feel all mad scientist. "Muahahah… I shall create… cute animals!")

This year, I was stumped almost right up to carving time. Who was it going to be? The answer, as it turned out, was right in front of my face. I've got them everywhere. My owl obsession just keeps growing.

I have an owl pillow, owl mug, owl pendant, owl earrings, and an owl piggy bank. And a big hanging ceramic owl bell, just like the one my mom used back in the day to ring us in for dinner.

And after six months of coveting him from afar, I now have the most adorable stuffed owl ever. He lived at my local grocery store, in the floral section. Here's a picture from the first time I saw him:

But I couldn't bring myself to pay $20 for him when I'd just bring him home and my dogs might do this to him:

Poor Sharkey. May he rest in peace.

So I'd visit the owl every time I went grocery shopping. I may have even named him Stu at some point. I'm weird that way.

But my birthday was a couple days ago. And he'd been there since April! Clearly waiting for me! I had to pick up a couple of groceries that night, my birthday night. And… I brought him home. (He will live up very, very high, out of reach of the canine crazies.)

My love for owls is rooted in nostalgia, sure – my Mom collected them, too – but doggonit, they're also just darn cute! Big eyes, fat fluffy bodies, cute little beaks, inquisitive natures (or so it seems). So, *ding!* An owl o'lantern it was.

Shall I post instructions, just in case you, too, are owl-obsessed?

Here's how:

Owl O'Lantern

Ingredients:

• One large pumpkin – taller than it is wide, but still nice and owly plump around the middle
• Two white mini pumpkin gourds
• One tiny little gourd of your choice (for the ears)

Instructions:

1. Do your normal thing with the pumpkin – cut off the top, and hollow it out.
2. Slice the white mini pumpkins in half horizontally, and scrape the seeds out. The tops with the stem will be the eyes. The bottoms will be the feet.
3. Cut the little gourd in half. You may need to recruit big strong men to hacksaw it in two, they're tough little suckers (Thanks Jon!). Scrape the seeds out.
4. Hold the white mini pumpkin halves (eyes) up to the big pumpkin, and mark the circumference of the eyes.
5. Cut out holes about a half inch in from where you marked the outside of the eyes. In other words, the holes will be smaller than the actual eyes.
6. Preferably with one of those awesome pumpkin-scraping tools, scrape the pumpkin skin off to reveal the pulp underneath (I found a circular motion the easiest), until you've got a circle that's just bigger than the eyes. That makes sense when you look a daylight photo, right? I hope so.
7. Poke toothpicks into the top and the bottom of the mini pumpkin eyes, then poke them into the pumpkin. He can see!
8. Carve a small inverted triangle just below the eyes, for the beak.
9. Using toothpicks, stick the mini gourd halves, hollowed-out side facing to the front, onto the top of your owl o'lantern. Ears!
10. Prop the two remaining mini pumpkin halves under the bottom of the pumpkin for little feet.

Who created a very cute owl o'lantern? You!

"Is… is there something behind me?"

Good God!

Whew.

Tomorrow: Todd's trompe l'oeil jack o'lantern. Whadda show off!