I miss the trick or treaters, living in a rural area, but we did have a couple come in to the library on Saturday on their way to the "Harvest Festival" at the school next door. With driveways that are 1/2 mile long, trick or treating is impractical, so parents either drive their kids into town (23 miles) or just stick with the fair at the local school on the weekend before Halloween.
The Harry & David seasonal re-training started this week, so we got to take part in the Halloween pot-luck yesterday. Costumes were allowed so I wore a pig nose, carried a plastic spider on my shoulder, pinned copies of "Some Pig" and "Terrific" webs on the front and back of my pink sweater and went as Wilbur from Charlotte's Web. It's amazing how many smiles a person gets wearing a pig snout at work. :-))) Liz from Humbug
Fortunately Tuesday evening's weather - gale F8 and torrential rain - discouraged all the potential twick or tweeters. So far fireworks have not managed to make much of an inroad except for "official" bonfires. Unlike Scarborough which, when we left 3 years ago, had fireworks exploding almost every night from October right through to the New Year!
That's cuz she's a hunting dog (even though she doesn't) and the fireworks sound like guns. Jaz whines and whines inside the house when we're shooting off fireworks...she thinks she should go find a bird and doesn't understand why we won't let her! :)
*Great* costume, Liz!!! Our director, on the 30th, sent out a message asking that no one wear costumes to work. Fuddy-duddy!!! Too bad, since I just *might* have come dressed as a "professional" as I did once years back and wear a dress to work, instead of my usual jeans!
LOL - Puckster definitely wants out. His dog family all hunt, and they've had him out with them when he was very young, and when they babysit him. But, then, one day, he started singing with an ambulance siren coming down the street. It was amazing - he was definitely howling along with the tune of the sirens - his mouth in a little "o" shape, and turned up. Now, lately, he's taken to making some interesting kind of grunting noises - I think he's trying to get his doggie bark box to work like our vocal cords, and talk.
At last! Someone who knows that Cavaliers AREN`T just lapdogs! It`s not usual, but they ARE sometimes trained to retrieve small game ( Quail, partridge, etc.,)
Mind you, our soppy heap sits outside watching the birds hopping all around her feet while they`re feeding. You can almost hear her saying "Aaaahh!" They get within INCHES of her with perfect safety!
I just bought a beautiful leather patchwork beanbag for John, (Who prefers to sit on the floor, which is a bit hard on 74 year-old back and hips!) which arrived today. Guess who has discovered just how comfortable it is? That`s right - I discovered John - still on the floor - watching TV, whilst Madame Maggie reclined on the beanbag. All she needed to complete the picture was a long cigarette holder!
"Gundog? You must be joking - it`s cold and wet out there. I`ll leave that to the peasants!"
We had a golden retriever who did that - and also with the old wartime sirens they used to use for a few years when there was a fire.
I didn`t realise how the war must have affected me until one day they accidentally sounded the awful falling and rising wail of the "Alert" instead of the steady "All Clear" and I went totally hysterical for the first and only time in my life!
We live in a semi-rural area - only 12 houses on our road. Everyone knows everyone, only about 5 houses with kidlets of various ages so we end up with a sort of neighborhood "visit" out of it. The parents and the kids all go around and visit the other neighbors and enjoy special treats - such as homemade cookies and such, because it's the same people handing them out year after year...I mean we all know each other the rest of the year (can I borrow your tractor, do you want some extra peppers, your horse got out and he's in my yard....those type of conversations) so we're fine with that.
No-one else trick-or-treats here except those us of who live on the road. It's quiet but I really enjoy it - the costumes are fully appreciated and everyone's decorating and pumpkin carving efforts get a lot of admiration.
Those of us with children a bit older then usually drive them to town to go around those more crowded neighborhoods with friends from school where they can gather up a bit more candy :)
I just love growing pumpkins all summer so my walkway is full on Halloween - last year I had about 75 of them!
Our volunteer firefighters are on bleepers! They dismantled the sirens years ago. But then we don`t normally get the tornados that you do. We get more, apparently - just not as big!
Fortunately, we're still allowed to wear costumes to the library - at least on Halloween. When I stopped by to copy the Charlotte's Web pictures, the librarian was "Autumn" - autumny clothes with lots of leaves and fall colors, with an autumny wreath on her head, and her assistant (since I'm off on Tuesdays) was a "sort of" witch with a black dress and witchy type hair, but not a hat, since we were asked not to wear scary costumes. :-)
I was going to mail you the pear I expected to get at our product demonstration for the Harry & David returnees, but they didn't give us one this year. Instead, they gave us pieces of several items - a piece of a pear, a piece of Rogue Valley Creamery blue cheese, Red Velvet Cake, Snowball cake, two kinds of brittle and a chocolate cherry. More filling, but nothing we could take with us to mail to a friend. :-))) As it turns out, the World Series was good for Jackson & Perkins this year since they have a couple different "Cardinal" thingies (a door mat & a small live tree with a cardinal on top) that Cardinal fans were ordering to celebrate the win. :-))))) I'm just glad that I'm still doing mail order entry and don't have to answer the phones. The people that are really good at it love it, but I just didn't like stress of having someone on the other end of the line when something didn't go exactly right with the order. Mail order entry is much less stressful. They even had an organic harvest this year in one of their orchards.
The hours take a big chunk out of my stitching time, though, between now & Christmas. My movie time too. I'm going to have to start in on my Christmas movies soon to be sure I have enough time to get to watch them all. DH will watch an occasional one, but I try to watch most of them when he's at work. I've watched them all sooooooo many times that I can easily stitch and not really miss much of the movie if my head is down. :-))) I'm hoping to get three Halloween table runners done (Dutch Treats, again) in time to mail them to my sisters for Christmas. We'll see. :-) Happy Stitching! Liz from Humbug
Does this mean that I'm going to have trouble finding some type of cardinal gifty thing for my MIL this year? She just likes the birds. Nothing to do with any baseball team other than the Red Sox. Maybe I should check my stash and stitch her something. I know I've got cardinal patterns somewhere...
I'm just curious Liz as to where in Southern Oregon are you? I have several friends and relatives living in Ashland, Jacksonville and Medford - and my friend in Medford temps all year for David and Harry....it was fun using her employee discount in the retail shop last visit - Moose Munch is divine!
Call me lazy. I put off shopping and then buy something over the internet. Wait. It's not really that I'm lazy. I'm just living in a dream world where one day my husband will wake up and actually shop for his own parents! Or at least suggest what to buy.
But Plow and Hearth. You're on. I know that store is there, but haven't stopped at it yet.
ROFLMAO - ah, that dream. And what's worse is when the in-laws you do all the shopping for, love everything, assume "their" relative took care of it all, and still hate you (hmmm, do I sound bitter).
It's pretty nice - we can find lots of good little lunch places there, and it's not very long trip - maybe 20 min from your place if we're lucky - or
DH is addicted and I know there's something in the shop he wants, so - I haven't been for a while. We'll talk dates...
Thea Dueck just posted her cardinal snowflake ornament as a freebie on her site:
formatting link
You'll have to register to get it, but it's worth it, IMHO. She has a number of lovely patterns and I enjoy her occasional newsletters....and dream of someday going on one of her stitching retreats!
InspirePoint website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.