Nan Johnson, a long-time congregant of the First Congregational Church in Auburn, was staffing one shift at the checkout table for the church’s annual fundraiser: the sale of hundreds of pumpkins and gourds ranging from tiny elf houses to star gourds, to swan gourds, to bird houses to mushroom tops to warties to sugar pumpkins to the big fella traditional-looking pumpkins that are just waiting to be carved into jack-o-lanterns. The latter are sold by their girth, not by their weight, using a special tape measure marked off in inches and dollars.

Grown by the Navajo Nation in New Mexico and trucked up in an 18-wheeler, pallets and pallets of the vegetables arrived at the church on September 19. The gourds were unloaded by an all-hands-on-deck crew of volunteers including Boy Scout Troop 101, students from Auburn High School’s National Honor Society, and of course church members and their families and friends.

“Someone is here every day, seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., rain or shine,” explained Johnson about the sale hours. She said it is one of the church’s largest fundraisers, with proceeds split between the Navajo Nation and this quintessential, white-spired New England church.

Johnson said the church’s relationship with the Navajo goes back almost 20 years. “I have a photograph of my grandson among the pumpkins when he was about 2. And he’s 18 now,” said Johnson.

The pumpkins will be on sale through October 31. And then what becomes of the pumpkins that no one wants? “Well, we used to bring them to pig farms,” said Johnson, “but there aren’t any of those around anymore.”

So, the pumpkins will be trucked to dairy or cattle farms. “The cows get them now,” said Johnson. “They love them.”

Waste not, want not – a great tradition carried on by frugal New Englanders. W