Happy Halloween!

Here are some Halloween sights, taken yesterday on the search for jack-o-lantern pumpkins. Click on any image to view it larger:

One of the many pumpkin farms we stopped at.

A spooky, old building. Is it haunted? I don't know.

Fun gourd witches at another pumpkin farm.

And, of course, pumpkins!

A mini haunted house.

This pumpkin bale wishes you a Happy Halloween!

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Halloween in our yard

I hope your Halloween was spooky and fun!

A crypt appeared in our yard for the evening:

My daughter and her boyfriend became vampires and handed out candy in the crypt:

Trick-or-treaters made their way to ours, the last house on a dead-end street, to receive their treats. I was a ghostly figure hovering here and there, replenishing the treat cauldron when supplies got low, adjusting the fogger, and generally haunting the accompanying graveyard:

My offspring were artsy with their Jack-O'lanterns:

As the night grew darker, the vampires became spookier:

We had a fun night - although all had been foretold that morning. I went to the library earlier in the day. There, at the checkout desk was a fortune teller with this sign, "Are you fortune's friend or foe? Ask me a question and I will know." And there, before me, was a magic eight ball.

I grasped the eight ball and asked, "Will our Halloween be a success?"

I shook, turned the ball over, and the ghostly answer floated to the the surface of the dark little window, "Without a doubt."

And it was right.

Reverse Trick-or-Treating

Last Monday I went to a program at my library. Cookbook author, Bev Shaffer, gave a delightful presentation on her experience with cookbook writing, and afterward there was a chocolate tasting -yum! It was all fair-trade, organic chocolate and it was absolutely delicious.

At the end of the evening, Ms. Shaffer told us about a reverse trick-or-treating volunteer program sponsored by Equal Exchange, a fair-trade chocolate co-op. The Reverse Trick-or-Treating works this way, volunteers get a set of cards (see below), each with a small bar of fair-trade chocolate attached. When a volunteer child receives candy at a home, he or she then gives the adult one of the cards and says something to the effect of, "Thank you, and here's a piece of fair-trade chocolate for you," or, "Thank you! Here's some information on how you can help end child slave labor on cocoa farms.":


The cards have information about fair-trade chocolate and how fair-trade co-operatives are working to end child slave labor on cocoa farms and make sure that cocoa farmers earn a decent wage:

And the chocolate is yummy!

All of us at the library program received a bag with 10 of these cards. My children are too old for trick-or-treating, but my daughter went out last night with some friends who were taking their baby out for her first trick-or-treat (their neighborhood had its trick-or-treating last night). She took the cards along and gave them away at the homes they visited.


And if you have never learned how to taste chocolate (think wine-tasting), I would urge you to learn (see this book: The Chocolate Connoisseur) and then try some of the fairly-traded chocolates which are becoming more prevalent nowadays in places like your local grocery store. Most of these are also organic and their flavors are complex and absolutely wonderful.

Happy Halloween and Happy Chocolate tasting!

In search of the Great Pumpkin

Even though my kids are in college, we still like to go out to a pumpkin patch to find our Halloween pumpkins:


We drove way out into the country and found a nice patch where pumpkins of all shapes,:


textures,:

ripeness,:

and configurations, could be found:

And there were plenty to choose from. If you couldn't find your pumpkin in one field, there were other fields off in the distance to scour:

We saw the Great Pumpkin rise out of the pumpkin patch!:

I found the perfect squash!:

I had a hand carrying it back:

When we had each found a perfect specimen, we hauled our pumpkin loot back to the barn:

Where there were pumpkin horses pulling carts loaded with you-know-what:

As we drove away, they seemed to say, "Bye! Come back next year!":

Now comes the hard part - deciding how to carve our Jack-O'Lanterns!

Spooky

Okay, enough with digressions. Back to the spirit of this month which ends in All Hallows Eve.

Here is a link to the first chapter of a young adult novel I began to write last year:

Ghosts

I know, I know, it's ironic that I'm posting a link to my writing after the last post, but I put it up last year just for the month of October, too. Feel free to tell me not to quit my day job if you want : )

And just like last year, the chapter will disappear when October ends!

A tasty, seasonal snack

A group that my daughter belongs to had a fundraising bakesale yesterday. In keeping with the season, she made these cookies to take to the sale:


I had some cello bags left over from something or other, so she put a handful of fingers in each bag. They were a hit at the bakesale.

You can find the recipe here (from Martha Stewart). The recipe calls for whole almonds for the fingernails, but I use the sliced almonds. And pay no nevermind to the comments at the end of the recipe. They seem to all be negative, but I've never had any problems with the recipe, my fingers always turn out creepy and good.

Mmmm... there's nothing like a crunchy Witch Finger cookie with your morning coffee to start the day.

The Fortune Teller

For anyone interested, here are some pictures from Halloween. We had a gypsy camp in our front yard. My daughter and her boyfriend dressed like gypsies and sat by the 'campfire' while my daughter played the violin. I told fortunes in the tent and gave out candy.

The gypsy camp seemed like it was back in the woods, but it was just between some trees in our front yard; off to the left a pot hangs on a tripod and cooks over the 'campfire':

A gypsy fortune teller:

Fortunes being told:

Hubby wasn't able to get a picture of the gypsies enjoying music around the campfire - they had retreated indoors by the time the camera came out in order to do some baking for a family event the next day.

Hope you had a nice Halloween!

How To Make A Mummy

What? Halloween is tommorrow and you don't have any decorations? Need a great centerpiece for your Halloween party? Have no fear, you still have time to make a mummy!


What you will need:

1. One willing person (don't worry, they won't be mummified - they will be free to walk awayfrom your mummy)

2. A few rolls of masking tape

3. Old clothing that is no longer wanted - one long-sleeved shirt and one long pair of pants

4. One pair of stockings (panty-hose), or one footy-stocking

5. One pair of old socks

6. One pair of old gloves or vinyl one-use gloves

7. Lots of newspapers

8. Scissors

9. spray paint (optional)

Now: Convince the willing person to put on the old clothing. Wrap the masking tape around the limbs, torso, and arms of the person (not tightly). The arms of the person should be straight, not bent. Carefully cut the clothing/masking tape shell off of the willing person. Stuff this shell firmly with newspaper and tape up the seams. If you want bent arms on your mummy, you can bend them during the stuffing process and use tape to help them stay bent.

The head is a little tricky. Use only one of the foot-ends of the stockings. Pull it over the willing person's head. Carfully wrap the face, leaving the nostrils open for breathing, and part of the top of the head with the masking tape. Do not wrap the entire head! You must be able to pull the stocking off of the willing person's head. The shape of the face will stay due to the masking tape. Now stuff the empty stocking head with newspaper and shape it so that it's head-like. Finish wrapping it with the masking tape. Remember to cover the nostril area.


Hands and Feet: Put gloves and socks on willing person's hands and feet. Wrap with masking tape. Remove, cutting away if necessary. Stuff hands and feet with newspaper. You will need something like a pencil to help stuff the newspaper into the fingers - you may even want to use paper towels in the fingers. It's a little easier to stuff in there, but make sure the fingers and hands and feet are stuffed well and firmly. Tape up any seams that you may have cut.

Now you must assemble your mummy. Tape the head, hands, and feet to the rest of the mummy, adding stuffing where it's needed.

Wow! Look - you have a mummy! At this point you can spray your mummy with a mummy colored spray paint - probably something not too different from the masking tape color. This helps it look aged and less like masking tape. The mummy in these pictures has not been spray-painted, although I have done it before to nice effect. This mummy shines a little in the flash of the camera - spray paint would help lessen that if that's important to you.

So get going - quick! Halloween is tomorrow!

Halloween Decorations

It all started when we moved into our house a little over seven years ago. Our house is the last on a dead-end street way at the back of our sub-division. I figured that I would have to lure children down to our end of the street. We had lots of moving boxes left over from the move, so with a few of them I built Hagrid's Hut:

We put it in our yard with a light shining on it and a few props and sign next to a grouping of trees nearby which said, "Forbidden Forest." I sat by the hut with a cauldron full of candy and told all of the little ghosts and witches and goblins that came by that I was Professor McGonagall and that I was handing out candy for Hagrid because he was, "away on Hogwarts business."

That little effort was a big hit and the next year as Halloween began to draw near people would ask me if Hagrid's Hut would appear again. Unfortunately it had gone the way of all used-up boxes, so I had to think of something else to do to lure the kiddies our way.

Each year we've picked a different theme and done the garage and the yard up. Our garage has been Balin's tomb from The Lord of the Rings movie, the treasure cave from Pirates of the Caribbean, Honeyduke's candy shop from Harry Potter, an Egyptian tomb, a witch's lair, and the home of a creepy old lady who kept her dead husband's casket on her table.

Here's the witch's lair - I 'magically' turned 'fun sized' candy into the regular big size in my cauldron and gave those out to the kids:

The creepy old lady with the dead husband lived next to a spooky graveyard:

Here are some 'artifacts' viewed through a hole in the Egyptian tomb's passageway:

Fog enshrouds the Shrieking Shack in our front yard (again made with boxes) - Honeyduke's was in our garage:

This year we will have a gypsy tent in our front yard. My daughter will play the violin and I will tell fortunes. The forcast for Halloween is 59 and clear. Hope they're right!

A Halloween Story

I entered an online Halloween story contest and my story was one of the ones selected to be published. You can read it here on the Creativity Portal website.

It's called The Dark Street.

Favorite Halloween Movies

Here are some movies I like to watch when it gets to be fall-like and Halloween-y out:





Dracula with Bela Lugosi. My favorite part is the Count's reaction when he is offered a cigarette from a case with a mirror in the lid.











The Mummy with Boris Karloff. Ardeth Bay is the scariest looking mummy ever.







Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. Whenever I see fall leaves blowing down the street I think of this movie. It's lots of fun and creepy too. What's not to like about two lovable old aunts who poison lonely old gentlemen with homemade elderberry wine?












The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr. My favorite thing about this movie is the old gypsy woman.








Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy. This is an Abbot and Costello spoof of The Mummy. When I was little I thought the mummy's name was Clarence. I wondered why somebody from ancient Egypt would be called that. When I grew up and saw the movie again, I realized that the mummy's name is Claris.





Hocus Pocus. I can't put my finger on why I like this movie. Maybe it's because the witches are so funny, or because of the black flame candle, or because of Billy the (un)dead boyfriend, or Binks the cat who used to be a boy and has lived for hundreds of years. It all comes together in a very entertaining Halloween movie.


As you can see, I tend to lean toward the old classics. I also like I Married a Witch with Veronica Lake, and Bell Book and Candle with Jimmy Stewart (interestingly enough, in this movie about witches there is an actress whose real name is Hermione G., but the G doesn't stand for Granger, it stands for Gingold).

Well, Happy October to you. I'm going to watch a few of these movies this month.