Happy Halloween!

 

The big day has arrived and I'm a little sad that the spookiness will be coming to an end.

Although it really doesn't have to, does it?

Since it's also a Sunday, I was in charge of brunch. After not being able to find a suitably Halloweeny dish to try, I gave up and decided to make pancakes in the shape of ghosts and pumpkins.

It could have gone better, at least they were fairly tasty.

There's nothing like a few blueberries and some maple syrup to cover up a pancake mistake! Why didn't I think of making whipped cream, too?

Our town's Trick or Treat time started at four in the afternoon. Kibitz kept everyone on schedule.

As always, there were some rather interesting costumes.

Burt and Ivy took the first hour. It works out better if the children see them in the daylight.

His Madness was on candy duty after the sun went down.

A lot of the children in our neighborhood are preschoolers so we try to keep our jack-'o'lanterns looking happy and cheerful.

Somehow, there's alway one that ends up with a scary face, but then who doesn't want to get just a little frightened on Halloween?

We're celebrating tonight with some snacks and a shot or two of RumChata. Since I just found these Hocus Pocus glasses at Home Goods, we felt obliged use them and watch the movie again, ha!

I hope everyone had a safe and Happy Halloween!

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

Carving Pumpkins

Since Halloween is tomorrow, we can't put off carving those pumpkins into jack-'o-lanterns any longer! Let's hope they don't end up as blood spattered as the one in Sleepy Hollow.

Ivy is all prepared to transform the pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns.

 

And Burt is all prepared to watch.

First, they had to take a moment to check out this photo Kristin sent. Andy and Kristin were celebrating their anniversary in New Hampshire and ran into one of Burt and Ivy's friends at their hotel. What a small world! 

One of the first steps in the process is gathering the tools. The Official House Pumpkin Carving Knife lives at the far end of the knife holder because it normally only gets used once a year. This year was an exception, we carved up a lot of different fruits and veggies into jack-'o-lanterns for no good reason at all. It was fun though.  

Ivy's certainly got her work cut out for her.

Removing the top off the first pumpkin revealed a spider web of slippery seeds.

Why do the insides of pumpkins always look so spooky?

Two down, two to go!

It was a long afternoon that stretched into evening.

There were a few slips with the knife but the only obvious loss was a fang.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

National Cat Day

 

According to the internet it's National Cat Day! That probably means that Spenser and Stewart will be even less cooperative than normal. Although, I suppose I wouldn't be too thrilled if someone woke me up by sticking a wooden countdown calendar in my face either.

Stewart is always skeptical of what he reads on the internet. However, he's always willing to go along with any holiday that includes cat treats.

Tasty Human, huh? Are they made from real human beings?

Let's hope it's not going to one of those Halloweens!

Like most kitties, Stewart and Spenser don't care much about holidays but Halloween makes them very upset, almost as much as the Fourth of July.  Although everyday must be kind of a holiday when you spend most of your time eating, sleeping and knocking things onto the floor. Weren't there pumpkins on that table?

 

Apparently they were keeping Stewart awake. He was probably right, it was pretty cluttered.

Occasionally, they catnap in some pretty silly positions. Here is Spenser snoozing in his duck decoy position. Where do you suppose his tail is?

Kitty life isn't just about treats, naps and laser pointers.

There's video games, too.

You would think that they would be really good at this fishing game considering how much time they spend playing it. Maybe, because it was a free download and they're playing it on a ten year old iPad they can't do any better. They're probably going to want an upgrade soon.

Oh well, you can't win them all. Maybe if they cut back on the nap time they could get in some practice and improve those scores? Just a thought. Happy Cat Day guys, hope you had a great time!

Obviously, National Cat Day isn't really a holiday for pampered pets but to raise awareness of the need for  people to visit their local shelters and adopt a cat, or two. We found Stewart and Spenser at our Humane Society. Originally, we were only planning on adopting one cat but they were having a "buy one, get one free" type promotion and that worked out perfectly for all of us.

Happy Cat Day to all the kitties and humans out there!

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow.

Pretzels and Pinholes Part Two

 

A little over three weeks ago I did a post on the pinhole camera His Madness made specially for me from a Bats and Jacks Halloween Pretzels box. Now, I've finally managed to take some photos with it.

Although, I can't take much of the credit since I needed a lot of help just getting the right exposures. I also did not do the film developing or scan the negatives. To be fair, it was more of a collaboration in which I told him what I had in mind and he figured out how to make it work.   

The Skeleton Crew, along with His Madness agreed to pose for me as long as they could dress up as their favorite Halloween characters. HM, came as himself because he already is a character. They were all very good at staying still for minutes on end and fortunately, the wind didn't blow them over.  

What I like about lensless photography is that it's usually done with film. So if you use black and white film, the photos are actually in black and white. It not just a setting you choose after taking the picture.

They also seem like they could have been taken in another era, I'm getting an early Disney vibe here from Burt and Kibitz.

 

HM definitely appears to be from bygone times, though maybe it's just the hat?

There's something very spooky about pinhole photography. 

Sometimes odd things show up on film that you would never see in digital photography. Wait! Is that another pirate lurking just behind Burt? Maybe Burt was a pirate in a former life, before he became a skeleton! Could it be his old captain?

Well, whoever it was didn't stick around very long and it seems like Burt's okay with that. Maybe I'll just stick to digital photography for the rest of this season but keep an eye open for things to photograph with my pinhole camera during Halloween next year! Who knows what might appear, bwahhaha! 

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow, back in color!

Flowers and Pumpkins

 

It's the end of October and so far we haven't had a hard freeze or any snow! Unfortunately, according to the weather forecasters, our fair weather will soon be over, so Ivy and Kibitz headed to the backyard to see what they could salvage.

According to Kibitz, the white pumpkins still aren't ready to harvest. I hope it's okay with him that we went ahead and picked some of the little orange ones!

Ivy gathered what was left of the cosmos and the zinnias for one last bouquet. They were mostly pink and peach, not a very autumnal color scheme but they do have yellow centers.

At the moment, the very festive looking Ghost Peppers seem to be coming in all colors, ha!

After seeing the roses at the Green Bay Botanical Garden, I decided to take a second look at my own. They are still blooming too!, Although they're not as prolific as the ones in Green Bay. I don't normally expect much from them in the fall but maybe next year I'll try to keep them going a little longer.

 

The aconite is the very last of our perennials to flower - unless we have a night or two of temperatures below freezing. Then it doesn't bloom at all.

 

The other rose that is still going strong is the Darlow's Enigma. The flowers look so dainty and delicate but in reality it's an absolute beast. I cut it back in the spring so it's only about a foot tall and by the end of summer it's over eight feet and grabbing anyone who gets too close with it's thorns.

This was the first year I've planted dahlias and apparently I did just about everything wrong. Of the seven plants that came up, three bloomed prolifically. The tubers will be getting dug up soon and stored to replant next spring. They are supposed to be foolproof and easy to grow, ha! Guess I'd better give them another try.   

Here is Ivy's peachy-pink, end of the season, little bouquet. The giant frilly dahlias will be staying in the garden awhile longer, they may be needed for Halloween!

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

The Porch - Part Two

 

Oh, no. They still haven't found the front porch decorations.

This morning, Ivy woke up in a panic. For the second year in a row, they couldn't find the lights or garland for the front door. Last week, they found some lights but not the lights. So they put up what they found thinking those lights would be okay and then they would just pick up some new garland.

Until they got to the stores all they found was Christmas! 

This morning Ivy decided she was out of time and had to find garland somewhere.

Actually, she found exactly what she wanted right away but would she get it by Halloween, even with prime? Then Burt had a sudden brainstorm. What if the decorations accidentally got in one of the Christmas bins. Why hadn't they thought to look there last week?

Of course, everything was in the bin marked Christmas Lights, duh! Didn't they just go through this same thing last year? That's something to remember for next year although now I'm wondering where the Christmas light might be.

Better late than never!

Now, hopefully Ivy will be able to get a good night's sleep.

Apart from needing a half-dozen or so jack-'o-lanterns, the porch is more like it's old Halloweeny self. The old lights and garland aren't looking too bad either. 

This year we will have to be careful when we take them down that they get in the right bin.

Let's make sure we don't pack up Spencer, too!

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!