My intention was to carve a pumpkin for the squirrels. I have seen many posts where people placed their Halloween pumpkins out on the porch only to have the squirrels transform the whimsical carvings into disturbing horrors. My thought was “Cool! Squirrels like pumpkin!”

My squirrels are not currently interested in pumpkin. I was seeing no difference in the carving so after a few days I went for a closer look.

Ew. The entire inside of the pumpkin was full of black fungus. It was already starting to go soft. Ew. I knew our humidity was higher recently, but wow. Instead of a squirrel feeder I had a cavernous mouth of mold.

The Bocca della Veritas is a sculpture in Italy. The name means “Mouth of Truth”. I couldn’t get the name out of my head looking at this pumpkin.