alien pumpkins, and customers prefer twisty stems

I started on those pumpkins I mentioned in my last post and remembered that last year I sometimes had a problem with manipulating the stems.  Trouble was, the pumpkins have to be leather hard or nearly leather hard to stand up to pulling and twisting the stems.  Last year I tried wrapping the stems with plastic wrap before setting the pumpkins aside to dry which helped but wasn't as effective in keeping the stems as moist as I needed. 

This year I wrapped a small piece of damp paper towel around the stems then covered that with foil.  Next day the pumpkins were dry enough to handle while the stems were still soft enough to shape.