1 Day

 

It's the day before Halloween, is there enough time to catch up?

The weather predictions for All Hallow's Eve are pretty grim in our area. With 38° F. as the high temperature and an 80 percent change of snow, things aren't looking too good for a decent turnout of Trick or Treaters. In fact, I'm wondering if anyone will show up at all!

 

All the pumpkins were brought in yesterday so they wouldn't freeze overnight. It's very hard to carve a jack-'o-lantern out of a frozen one and even worse when they start to thaw out.

His Madness got the job of gutting them while Kibitz supervised. Looking on the bright side, if it stays below freezing, the jack-'o-lanterns will last a really long time.

Meanwhile, Ivy and Burt finally finished the Halloween tree they started decorating last week. It was one of those better late than never situations. 

They decided to wait to decorate the porch until tomorrow, when the weather is at it's worst.

They do love a good challenge.

A little snow would never keep them from going out and terrorizing the neighborhood.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

2 Days

Spenser would like everyone to know that today is also National Cat Day.

We ordered him a special present but it won't be here until tomorrow. 

His Madness made a special pie for the occasion.

Spencer really appreciated the kitty decorations, even if he can't eat any of it.

He decided to spend the afternoon snoozing in his favorite chair on the patio.

Unfortunately, Kibitz and the squirrels kept him awake.

Then he had some serious doubts about his choice for a Halloween costume.

Maybe he should he be a pirate instead?

 Finally, he decided it was such a hard decision he had no choice but to sleep on it.

Hope Burt doesn't keep him awake.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow! 

3 Days

Thanks to another dire weather forecast, the skeletal silliness had to be postponed again today. 

After looking at the mums this morning, we realized that the predicted hard freeze never happened and maybe the threat was past. Not forever of course, but for at least a week.

So we headed off to the last outside version of the Saturday Farmers Market.

Since all the vendors were giving away candy, it was pretty crowded.   

Apparently, none of the restrictions were being enforced today.  

While we were checking out these warty gourds pretending to be pumpkins, it started to get very windy and the temperature dropped to 39°F. So we immediately left for home to bring our pumpkins inside before they froze.

Then, in the middle of picking the last cabbages, I remembered there were some pansies I wanted to press. It's always good to keep focused on the important tasks.

This cement Athena was is heaviest thing available, so she's now the official flower press. She lives in the basement, patiently waiting between the recycling bag for the used coffee pods and the box of dead batteries. Someday we will find the perfect spot in the garden for her.

First, these plants need to find another home.

The Crew will be back on Sunday, pending another minor catastrophe.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

4 Days

The Crew was all set to decorate the front porch when they saw the weather forecast and realized the temperatures would be going down to 28°F. this weekend and, it might snow on Halloween!

Then I realized that today was going to be my last chance to paint the front door until next spring! Once again, finishing the decorating was put off while we dealt with Mother Nature latest change of plan. At least it's done, not too sure about the color but it will definitely work for spooky season.

The fact that so many plants are still alive is kind of a miracle anyway, but seasons change whether we're ready or not. So we picked the last peppers, took some coleus cuttings, brought the house plants inside and hoped the weather predictions will be wrong.

It was great to have the warm temperatures back for a little while but now . . . 

 . . .  it's sweater weather.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

5 Days

 

It's going to be a dark and stormy day that will probably turn into a dark and stormy night.

This is not one of those crisp, autumnal mornings, it's actually pretty warm and muggy outside. The rain seems to have toned down the neon leaves, too. I've always thought some photographers used Photoshop to enhance the color saturation of fall foliage in their pictures, now I'm not so sure. In this photo I tried to desaturate the color so it would appear more realistic, although in person it looks even more brilliant, ha!

Whatever the weather, The Crew likes to spend the morning in a leisurely manner and Spenser is always happy to join in.

Now that we have the correct lightbulbs, Burt was looking forward to making his morning coffee. Life is so much easier when you can see what you're doing. 

Unless there's a problem with the new outlet. Seriously?

So is the pantry possessed now too?

 

Fortunately, there were plenty of other outlets to plug the coffee maker into and Burt was able to make his coffee. At least the all of the light fixtures they installed are working, I think.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

6 Days

 

Why, with less than a week to go before Halloween, The Skeleton Crew has decided to put up a spooky tree, is anyone guess. Oh well, you can never have too many decorations.

They would have done it sooner if they could have remembered where they put the ornaments. 

Then, late this afternoon, Ivy found them all the way in the back, behind the Christmas stuff.

They were happy and couldn't wait to get started.

I don't know why my camera decided to pick up the fall leaves in that fake looking color.

Burt was more than happy to add the lights. They look white but their actually orange.

Kib was standing by with the ornaments.

Then Ivy realized she didn't have any of the little metal hooks for hanging up the ornaments. Looks like this is another project that has to be continued on another day.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

7 days

 

Halloween is just a week away! We may have some new outdoor decorating challenges ahead and our possessed kitchen has struck again.

Today could've gone better but we weren't left in total darkness.

The info on the lights said they took a "standard G9 bulb". Apparently, my mind saw the word "standard" and didn't feel the need to pay attention to the rest of the description. What was I thinking? Okay, I'm clueless about bulbs, but the new light fixtures are really pretty. 

Kibitz wearing his "I told you so" expression. At least the pantry is very clean now.

The correct bulbs will be here tomorrow but that's a minor issue compared to the front porch lights. The electricians will be back to finish them as well as a couple of other things they couldn't get to, nothing is ever simple. They tried their best and it's really not that bad. We tried switching out our dining room chandelier by ourselves once and had no power for three days.

This might take a couple of weeks to fix but we can work with it.

Thank goodness it's Halloween and not Christmas.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

8 Days

 

There's only eight days before Halloween and Burt had to spend the whole day cleaning the pantry so the electricians could work their magic tomorrow. He really didn't mind though, he loves pretending to be Uncle Fester and he definitely needs electricity for that.

Ivy was amazed that all this stuff came out of one little room. 

Kibitz is wondering if all this work was really necessary for an outlet and a new light.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

Apples & Math

The countdown is into single digits!

Is seems like driving through a town called Appleton, on your way buy apples, would be something you'd come across in a novel. Considering there are more than a dozen orchards in the area, it's hard to believe I never made the connection between the name of the city and the fruit before. That white cupola in the distance is the Main Hall of the university our son Andy graduated from, so we've spent a lot of time here.   

Not that the orchard we were looking for was actually in Appleton, but we had to drive through the town to get to it. Since it was around lunchtime it seemed like a good ideas to stop at one of our favorite restaurants. The food is good but it's best feature is the view, especially on a beautiful day. 

 

Even the parking lot was looking good.

The people at the orchard were so friendly and helpful that I completely forgot to take photos. The prices were listed by pecks. A peck is a measurement of the space something takes up and there are four pecks in a bushel, as in a bushel basket. Luckily, they also sell them by the pound, which is a concept we could understand.  

There are six pounds of Honeycrisp apples in Ivy's bag. A peck of apples weights about ten pounds so she is carrying around six tenths of a peck.  

Kibitz was very confused by all this talk about pecks.

There were nineteen varieties to chose from so we tried to get two or three of each kind.

Now, how do we tell them apart? 

It's okay, once they're in a pie, will it really matter?

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!