The Growth Of A Great And Special Pumpkin

Hi there!

Sis Lori here, long time no see! I had to move again, not far, but lots of work and all that goes along with that!

Anyway, I wanted to share something that I was so proud of about my son Steve recently before Halloween is gone!

He and his beautiful wife Nicole recently bought the home he was raised in from his Dad in Placerville which is in the Mosquito Area, a lovely place!

There has been a Pumpkin contest for a few years his friends started. This year he had a nice place to have a garden spot. That's Layla checking it all out!

The seeds were actually started when he lived in Folsom and before they moved to their new home.

               Here it is after some time during the growth process:

Dad also lives on the property in a "granny flat",  and it is a competition pumpkin contest so the other smaller planting you see in this photo is his:

Here are a number of photos, at various stages of the growth, in progress.......

We really had a pretty darned hot summertime here for quite a while this year!!!!

Layla was a great protector of the Great Pumpkin!!!!!!


Here we are in the final stages!!!!!!



Below, you see the loading of the pumpkin.
Thankfully the party was not far away from their home!!
In the photo are Ryan, Nicole, and Steve.
Ryan and his wife Chelsea are the organizers of the Pumpkin Party and the Contest.

Loading on to the truck, with Dad Steve helping out.
 Our son Steve's pumpkin is near the cab window of the truck and Dad has the strap around his own nice pumpkin towards the gate of the truck:

The next photo shows the unloading of the two pumpkins with a forklift at the party site:
The Goat Mountain Giant Pumpkin Contest in Mosquito, California.
Careful, now, we could have a winner here!!!

Here is a video of the weighing of my son Steve's Great Pumpkin.

The weight is a little unclear and hard to hear.

You can see the results in the following entry chart photo below.

#1 Jr -  My Son

#6 Sr - His Dad

And the final results, as listed on the board:

 Yes, that's it:
His pumpkin weighed in at a whopping 510 pounds!
There was a lot of hard work and prep put into this and I was super proud of him. It was pretty exciting!
He will continue again and attempt an even larger pumpkin next time!!!!
Happy Halloween, everybody!
And may The Great Pumpkin  find YOUR pumpkin patch to be the most sincere of them all!

Celebrating October With Brach's Candy Corn (Again)

I've already written a "Then And Now" post featuring Brach's Candy Corn, back in 2012 (click here to read it), so today I'm just doing a quick re-visit to celebrate the arrival of October.
I found another great old advertisement for Brach's Halloween candy in one of my old magazines, and I figured it was most definitely "share-worthy"!
I'm glad October is here, and it would be unusual for us to reach temperatures at or over 100 degrees this month around these parts - but not unheard of.
Me? I'm hoping for the best.
I want "HOT" to be over.
Here's a close-up of a corner of the ad:

 How cute were those little house-shaped cardboard "Paks"?
And I love the little pre-packaged cellophane bags, all ready to go for the Trick-Or-Treat set!
I'm so sorry I neglected to get the year on this ad; I tore it out of a magazine and forgot to write it down.
But I'll guarantee you that I'd have been happy to get one of those little packets when I was a little girl going door-to-door in my costume.
And here's a picture of the entire page, a colorful one featuring
"Brach's Halloween Candy For Trick Or Treat":

And then, just for fun - here's a photo of the way their candy corn package looks "Now":

In fact, I just purchased those at the grocery store this morning!
I also wrote about Brach's Candy Corn back in 2009.
Because I LIKE it - can you tell??
It's kind of fun to see how the package has changed over the years, and besides that, I showed another of the great vintage magazine advertisements in that post, so please do go back and read that post again, as well, won't you?
Happy October, everybody!
Here's hoping we all have a "Spooktacular" month!

It's Halloween Time!

Happy Halloween everyone!
I found this cute vintage paper decoration at a thrift shop earlier this month:

 We don't even get any trick or treaters at our house, and yet - for some reason - we still buy candy.
 I can't imagine why that is.
Very mysterious.
Go figure.
  :)
This vintage perpetual calendar is one of my favorite recent finds.
 It may not be "Halloween-ish" exactly - but it is when it has this date on it!

And I got this vintage Jack O'Lantern cutie on Instagram:

I found a nice copy of "Homebodies" by Charles Addams at an estate sale last summer.
 Naturally, I had to have it out on display for Halloween,
and it looked just right behind my "Buried Alive" Halloween cupcake:

Also, here is one of his illustrations from the book that I particularly like - Morticia Addams:

Whether it's for a holiday or not, autumn and our wonderful rainy weather has gotten me in the mood for cooking up pumpkin anything, bread, cookies, pie, whatever.
And you know, I've actually never even tried one of the pumpkin drinks at Starbucks, so I just might have to do that, too.

How about you? Whatcha cookin' up?
Are you ready for November?
It's almost here.......
Be safe tonight!
Because the goblins will get 'ya if you don't watch out!

An October Illustration

October is nearly gone, and once again, I find I had forgotten to share a page from my copy of "The Year Around Book" by Helen Jill Fletcher, with illustrations by Jerry Pinkney.
So here it is:

I love this one!
(As I do every single page of this wonderful book published in 1965!)

Wishes For a Happy Halloween!

Hello there!

Here's wishing you all a terrific (and frightful!) Halloween today, with "A Spooky Song" from the same 1947 volume of Childcraft that I wrote about just the other day:

And this sweet (not scary!) black cat, below, is wishing you all "A Merry Halloween", from the front of this cute Hallmark card:

I think tonight might be the night the scarecrow walks.... don't you?? Happy hauntings!

Trick Or Treating With Betsey Clark, And That Darned Pumpkin-Eater

This adorable Betsey Clark illustration of two friends out trick-or-treating together is from a 1980 calendar.
Too cute!

And this illustration by Billie Parks for  the "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-Eater" nursery rhyme is from a Childcraft volume, one of a fourteen-volume set published by The Quarrie Corporation back in 1947 (and recently purchased by me from a thrift store - not the set, just two volumes):

One more page - it's that notorious pumpkin-eater again - features artwork by Krystyna Stasiak-Orska.
This book, "Mother Goose Rhymes"  was published by Scott, Foresman and Company twenty years later, in 1967.
I LOVE this one!

Halloween is almost here!
Do YOU have your "pumpkin shells" ready??

The Latest Round Of Finds

One of my favorite finds from the last week or two has to be this vintage Takahashi vase I found to add to my collection:

And I found two of these painted wooden pumpkins, which are just perfect for autumn decorating:

I found a really nice vintage handbag:

And two brooches.
The flower is vintage Avon, and the little compact in the center once held solid perfume, I believe.
 The other is enameled copper, and can also be worn as a pendant:

The vintage tea tin shown in the next picture is from England, and the little leprechaun is marked "Made In Ireland":

I have wanted one of these apple parer, slicer and corer gadgets for years!
I finally found one with the right price for me at a thrift shop:

And I found a couple of great vintage Halloween costume patterns.
(Too late to try and sell them for this year, though):

And this last gentleman is a Christmas decoration
Handmade papier mache, I think he's pretty cool:

 He has a sticker that says "Made by A Junior Achievement Company".
 I just wish I had found the other two that probably belonged with him!
That's it for today!

Halloween, Around Here

I just wanted to show you some of our Halloween decorations.
Let's start with my new favorite thing - the creepiest-looking thing I've got:

I just covered another one of my lamps with a mask - and I made the eyes to insert inside.
I think it turned out to be delightfully frightful!
I don't know if you remember this one, below, that I created last year or the year before:

And bin the next photo - "Oooohh - that's a very scary costume you have there, spider girl".......

At least, I THINK it's a costume?
Or do you suppose she is in some serious trouble, there?

 I liked this skeleton guy in the foyer so much last year, I decided that's pretty much going to be his regular spot.
 He's surrounded by masks (vintage and new) - but I do wish I had gotten a string of lights to drape around all of this, as well:

These are the two additional masks I found at a thrift and added after taking the photo:

 A display on the buffet in the dining room - the masks with the wig are placed over a lamp, as well:

Here's a picture of it at night, after I had changed things around a bit:

 I had to include a photo today of my dear black corduroy cat.
I have had this little guy for at least 45 years - I am extremely fond of him.
It kind of looks as though something has him "spooked", don't you agree?

These adorable little Lucy Rigg bears aren't scary at all, only sweet:

It looks like they're surrounded, though:

 What do you think?
Trick - or treat?
I'd much prefer a treat, myself - like perhaps these pretzel rods I made using a cute Wilton chocolate mold I found at thrift store for fifty cents:

Cute, and tasty, too - always a nice combination.