October bliss

 How I love October!  But it all comes to an end so quickly...

It was a lovely month, with the trees looking particularly beautiful this year.  And we saw some great Hallowe' en displays!!  

But the best was visiting the pumpkin patch on Hwy 89!  The MacAndrews Pumpkin Farm is always a must-do for Hallowe 'en but this year we arrived just as the goats and sheep were being treated to pumpkins!  Wow!   

Oh my gosh!!!  Were they ever cute!!

We got some lovely pie pumpkins for soup-in-a-pumpkin.

And their carved pumpkins were masterpieces!

I also spotted the creatures in the tree behind their house, really fun!

Have a great night everyone!  Happy 'Hallowe' en!

Cabin and Spring Fever!

So just when it was time to come out of hibernation:  COVID-19!  I'm so bummed, we were really looking forward to exploring our new area and all the wonderful Springtime events, like the maple syrup fests... now we're stuck in our house and getting a little stir-crazy.  The pups are keeping us on schedule, though, and long walks help our mood, as well as some of the wonderful things being shared online, like this: 

When I heard some folks were turning their Christmas decorations back on, though, that made me shiver.  Christmas?!  I want Spring, I want flowers, I want mud and birds and green!  So I decorated for Spring, here are our front windows:

Bunnies!  Tulips!  Sunshine!  If you'd like to do the same, there are hundreds of bunny templates online but you're welcome to use mine.  They are about 20 years old, so I don't recall which ones I hand-drew and which were found online...  for your personal pleasure please use them to spruce up your home with seasonal color and fun!  Just print them on a full sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper and use them as templates on cardstock or whatever paper you have in your home.  

Enjoy!  Shine on!  Stay well, both physically and mentally!

Getting spooky!

It's almost Hallowe'en!  We have to hurry up and get ready!  

While our pumpkin lights have been on since October 1st, I really wanted to add something special to our decorations this year.  I wanted a ghost to hover over our front door over the trick-or-treaters and so the hunt was on for the necessary pieces.

First, we luckily found a great female ghost!  

She needed hands, though, and the Dollarama had just what we needed, while the Canadian Tire had the clips, tape and hardware we'd need to hang her up securely.  

These two lanterns from HomeSense that I bought in the Spring now finally had a purpose, along with an old dog chain and leaves from Dollarama.

And she's up!  It took a while, but our ghost is on a pulley system so that we can lower her to turn on/off her glowing head.

BOO!

Halloween 2016

As that other Holiday approaches far too quickly, I want to rewind just a wee bit and share some Hallowe'en fun with you.  Elora does Halloween in style with its Monster March parade but this time I want to share with you some of the decorations we got to see our neighbours scare up.

From the elegant to the subtle...

to the just for fun, Elora let its spirits shine.

I had to laugh when I saw this display:  is the abandoned bike and shovel supposed to be there?  I love the gruesome stories you could make up with these elements!!

However, our haunted friends in Aboyne took the cake with their skeleton horses and carriage display!

The skelly horses each even had their own water buckets!

And here was our offering:

 44 children dared to come up to our door on what was one of the most pleasant and mild Hallowe'ens I can remember.  We were expecting more ghosts and goblins to drop in... so there's lots of leftover goodies for our guests to enjoy!

As the light started to fade, the lanterns were lit and and the 2 skeleton dogs were added to the cemetery. 

 

 Howler was close enough to the walkway that he'd start howling when excited children went by, perfect!

And now all the creepy critters have been packed away (well, never all... there's always a bit of Hallowe'en at our house)...  

Until next year!

Easter under ice.

Happy Easter!  Happy Spring!  Mother Nature once again proved she is all powerful as we were walloped with an ice rain that altered all weekend plans. On Friday we were all set to receive our guests, but felt it prudent to warn them of the potential for another blackout: we were dark Thursday night from about 8:40pm to about 1:30am. Others fared much worse and as I type folks are still without hydro.

Across the street, a fairly typical bit of damage:  branches as large as my forearm littered the ground everywhere, with the occasional larger branch and in some cases trees looked like a giant had stepped on them, folding down and snapping most of the branches.  

Here are some photos from our yard:

Along the sidewalk.

Our cedars were not happy (but they all recovered).

Willow was not happy either, the tension in the air and the lights flickering had her hiding under the kitchen table... but on her back so she couldn't have been too upset.

Snowdrops under ice.