The ghouls and goblins have come and gone, but before you toss that jack-o-lantern, think about recycling it.
A Lakeshore orchard and winery wants them.
You can drop them off at Wagner Orchard and Estate Winery on Lakeshore Road 103, just south of Hwy. 401. It feeds them to the cows.
The public can drop them off at the farm. It provides apple bins to hold them.
"The cows can't bite into them, so we smash them up and then mix them in with their other feed," said Harold Wagner. "We also get, like, brewer's grains from the Walkerville Brewery and Craft Heads Brewery, so that's other stuff that doesn't end up in the landfill, and the cows love it."
Wagner figures they got about 4,000 lbs of pumpkins last year.
He asks that people remove anything sharp from them.
"Sometimes there's toothpicks and things that they decorate them with," he said.
Wagner said for every pumpkin received, a pound of ground beef will go to local food banks.
"We're basically going to weigh them and do like an average," said Wagner. "We're going to get this beef, frozen and package in all in one-pound packs, contact food banks and dole it out."
He expects to donate at least 1,000 lbs of ground beef this year.
