Carve a Country Star on Your Pumpkin

Okay, we were only going to carve one but Laney (my 3-year-old) wanted to carve a pumpkin too. So, we rounded up a "sacrifice" pumpkin from the garden. I've seen her with a knife and she's more Freddy Krueger than Iron Chef. (I'm kidding - I'm not going to give a three-year-old a knife.....not after what happened last time anyway.)

You've probably seen the pumpkin templates in the store. You get a pretty good looking pumpkin with absolutely no artistic talent. This year, though, I found country star templates at the GAC website. Oh, Yes! Kenny Chesney's coming over for Halloween!

After you've gutted your pumpkin, cut around your template and tape it onto your pumpkin. Then trace the design onto your pumpkin. I find the easiest way is to poke small holes along the edge of the design right through the paper and into your pumpkin with something small and sharp - like the tip of a pen or pencil.

Chickens will eat anything. Seriously, it's the best part about having chickens. Okay, eggs are pretty darn nice but there is never any wasted food around here. Burnt dinner? Don't like broccoli? Let your bananas turn a very not banana color? No worries - the chickens will eat it. Yes, they will even eat raw pumpkin guts.

Well, now we're tired so we take a short nap with our pumpkins. Napping is allowed during pumpkin carving.....so is beer.

Now, we skip ahead past the sweating and the swearing to the finished pumpkin. I've cut along my design lines with a little saw and poked the unneeded pieces out. These, of course were fed to the chickens. Looking pretty good, right Salty Dog? The true test will be to light Kenny up tonight.

Wow! Kenny Chesney looks good on my farm - don'tcha think?