November 1, 2007

It's a quiet day, even with the yard guys here to take away more leaves. Last week, they did end up mowing the grass too and maybe it's still growing and in need of mowing. I am going to be pulling out all my frost-bitten plants so I can put out the yard waste bag in tomorrow's garbage. Then I can plant my bulbs.

I only saw one pumpkin that had been rolled into the street and even it was not smashed. That's always a relief because it seems that people don't clean up messes like that once they hit the street, even if it was their pumpkin to begin with.

I liked the way the clouds looked this morning, contrasted against blue sky. It rained here and there, and now and then but I was lucky enough to avoid having to walk in the rain.

Some trees are hanging onto their leaves and some are completely bare but many are in this mostly-gone condition.

This was the western sky as I was out at 9 am and you can see the rain falling out of those flat bottomed clouds. They blew into the area while I was inside teaching and by the time I finished and left the building, it was sunny again.

Also at the construction site, I noticed one giant pile of crushed stone, along with a few smaller piles. Probably intended for foundations.

Enjoy the last few days of coloured leaves. We won't have any more until May some time.

Halloween 2007

The weather was perfect for trick-or-treating - dry and not very cold. Parents came out with their little ones and there were some cute costumes, none of which are pictured. Oh well.

This was my first attempt at a scene on a pumpkin - not bad but not brilliant. It's a bat beside the moon with three little bats in the background.

This is my usual pumpkin face. Not too scary this year.

Two sisters in the immediate 'hood. Don't be fooled by the makeup - they are good kids.

The only action shot of kids at the door and me handing out treats. Note the skeleton earrings Mum.

Someone else had done a nice job with glowing pumpkins - the photo doesn't do them justice.
I think I will be taking candy to school tomorrow!

October 30, 2007

Blogging is light today because I have set myself the task of carving a moderately intricate pumpkin. However, my right (knife) hand has a bit of a cramp so I pause in carving to blog.

We got two nice sized pumpkins and this is the smaller one.

Some weeks (or should I say months) ago, Loblaws started to get in their Halloween stuff and I spotted this booklet of templates. I usually make a face on my pumpkin and I have got good at not carving all the way through the flesh so it glows nicely. But I have wanted to so something more intricate and I liked some of these motifs. For this pumpkin, I chose the one with bats and a moon. Why did I not draw one myself? To much work. The set comes with two carving tools but they are tiny saws and their purpose is to cut all the way through the flesh and to get the proper effect, you don't cut all the way through. As I said, I bought the kit for the templates.

After cutting the lid out and scraping out the guts, I draw on the template and make my first cuts. The one tool that came with the kit that was great, was the gut-scraping tool. I have always used a large soup spoon but this plastic scraper works much better. I also cut a small vent hole in the back of the lid area to allow oxygen in for the candle later.

I discover that making this intricate pattern is quite fussy, and no, I am not surprised. I have to be very picky in ferreting out the tiny bits of flesh. For the moon however, I have discovered the perfect tool - a serrated grapefruit spoon! More pix will follow tomorrow, with the pumpkins lit and all.

In the meantime, this is what happens to impatiens after the first frost hits. I shall have to dig all this out this week, in order to get it in the yard waste pick up day time slot, which is this Friday.