Squash magic

I stopped growing squash some years ago, back when the garden transitioned from hobby/learning experience to survival. Squash is easy to grow and cheap to buy, so it made more sense to put my effort into harder to grow and more expensive veggies.

Then, 2 years ago, a squash plant appeared unexpectedly in the spot that I'd prepared for new blueberry bushes. Not just any squash; this was a gargantuan monster that looked like it belonged in a Japanese Godzilla, nuclear holocaust movie. It turned out it was a Hubbard squash, and I tried to follow the instructions to store it, but forgot to check it in February and by the time I remembered it, too late.

Last year, a squash started itself this time in the manure pile just outside the pasture, where I dump when the snow is too deep and time too short to take any distance. At first I thought it might be a spaghetti squash, but then it turned into some sort of pumpkin, which I harvested it too early so it was tasteless. It did, however, give me a fun couple of hours making my first jack o'lantern in, oh, I have no idea how many decades! That one I did get a pic of for posterity:

 Well this year the squash is back in the winter manure dump, but this time it's nearly, but not quite, as big as the hubbard and it's turned into a patch that runs into and along the new emergency paddock I built this spring. It's looking again like some sort of pumpkin, but much bigger and rounder than last year's. Also, thanks to the better rainfall, there's actually a couple of them growing that I can see. There's also a second plant across the path from the main one, which started a few weeks later so has just finished flowering. Don't know if there will be time for it to fruit!