My pumpkins! ARGHH! My Tailbone, uhhhg

I didn't want pumpkins in my garden, but once I realized what was going on, it was too late to stop them. They took over. But once I had them, I was kind of excited. I was thinking of different pumpkins I could carve or ways to decorate the front of the house with them. So since they choked out other plants in my garden, I tried to look on the bright side & think, "Well, at least I'll have some pretty pumpkins." Not so.

At first I noticed a few small gourds had gnaw marks on them, perhaps from a field mouse. I didn't get too concerned. But then I saw marks on the larger pumpkins. That's always the most frustrating thing... there's plenty of food in the garden, but the varmint tends to be drawn to the biggest, nicest looking veggie, only to take one bite, ruin it, then move on. The biggest pumpkin now has crater sized bite marks out of it.

I had dozens of small decorative gourds that were almost all ruined...the seeds were spilled all over the garden. I tried to scoop up some of them, but I imagine I'll have hundreds of gourd volunteers next year. I had harvested a few early for a photoshoot, so the ones left in the garden were free for the taking I suppose.

Oh, and when I was stepping over my electric fence to get a closer look at Pumpkingeddon, my pant leg got caught on a post, I lost my footing, and fell super hard onto the edge of the raised garden bed...right on my tailbone. I'm wondering if my tailbone is broken since it's been several weeks & it's still sore. My sister once broke her tailbone & it was sore for over a month. Her doctor shrugged & said there wasn't anything he could do for it. Apparently you just need to take it easy in order for it to heal.

It's still technically the biggest pumpkin in my garden. 

The pumpkins I salvaged still have a few nicks, but at least I got a few!