Stuff around the house and a bit of a fright (why you should probably not go for walks in the woods at night)

Stuff around the house

As you can see, My Sweet Husband has been busy again.

As the two pictures in this frame show, he has been removing the windows (on the left you see just the storm window in place) then carefully cleaning repairing and repainting where needed. 

 A few seasonal items

 This is one of my favorite Halloween decorations. I can't remember what this type of printing is called, but it really makes me think of my childhood.

 A seasonal treat. Something else that reminds me of childhood.

Do you remember this stuff?

 Jack

He is one of a set of two, they are currently glowing on the mantle.

 Our woods in the evening

We have been crazy busy lately. This weekend was no exception.

By the time we were ready to go for our walk, it was getting late.

The temperature was a little crisp, but still lovely, so we decided to go anyway.

 There is something so very peaceful about walking in the woods at twilight. 

 That is until you look down and see your foot about to step on this guy. I honestly do not know why I looked down and I don't think I realized right away what it was. I stepped away, took a couple more steps, then turned around and told My Sweet Husband, Look, a baby snake. (It was only about 18 inches long). He told me not to get to close, I listened.

This picture was taken by the light on My Sweet Husband's key chain (with the zoom lens). He said he did not think it was a baby, look how fat it is (take a look at the end of the tail too).

 Look him in the eyes

I finally figured out how to get the flash up, it was really too dark to see. This picture shows the shape of his head and the pattern on it's scales. No worries, also taken with the zoom lens. 

We left him in peace and headed carefully back to the car (this time with My Sweet Husband's light on the path in front of us. 

This morning we looked it up and we think he is a Pygmy Rattlesnake (who knew there was such a thing). 

I feel very lucky right now. 

One more picture from last night.

As I hum that one line from "The Teddy Bear's Picnic", 

you know the one that goes

"If you go down to the woods at night, you better not go alone"

Have a great week,

and watch where you step.

Cheers,

Kat

Mid October Inspiration

This little kitty's name is Akashia. Her heart is warm. Actually, all of her innards are warm. She has a cloth bag full of rice as stuffing in her trunk. This adds stability. It also makes her warm and cozy when you stick her in the microwave. When she comes out, I wrap her around my neck and she feels great. I got the idea from "Auntie Stress Annie" at http://dollmakersjourney.com/newsletter/auntie.html
I made the first doll exactly as shown (OK the pattern on the fabric was different, but you get what I mean). A couple of cat loving friends liked it so I came up with the kitty pattern. After a few winters of hard work, poor "Annie" split a seam, the fabric just gave way. Sad, but all good things..... Anyway, I did not plan on making mine a cat till I saw this cute fabric. What do you think? (Hint, if you are going to make one, use plain white rice. The more flavorful varieties will smell every time you warm them up).
While I was working on it, as you can guess, there were plenty of little stringy bits floating around and
the youngest member of the household got very interested. As I had plenty of fabric, I made her a toy too. It is stuffed with catnip, has a long tail to chase and has whiskers. Since it is head shaped instead of round, it wobbles when it rolls. She likes it (she is currently purring and keeping my lap warm).
Fall temperatures and colors inspire me. I want to make things! I am not the only one. Laura of "Gypsea Tree" http://lauragrace7.wordpress.com/ has been busy and my Sweet Hubby has been turning out all sorts of delights (as I showed you on the preview, this is a Guacamole Omelet). I have several ideas and supplies for more jewelry as well as cards I want to work on. Lots of my creative energy last week went

into a project for school, we had to make an instructive slide show. Isn't it nice when you can make homework into something interesting?

Fall is still tip toeing in slowly around here. The dogwood this week shows more red, but not much. These vines with berries are growing next to the Old Summer Kitchen. I don't know what they are but they are lovely. It is hard to stay in the house and work right now. The temperature keeps dipping into cold then back to mild. Our projected high today is 76 Fahrenheit, that is about 24 Celsius. There is a light breeze so some leaves are falling.

When we were kids, falling leaves meant fun. We would gladly help rake up the front lawn if we could jump and play in the pile. Our neighbor had a "Horse Chestnut Tree". It was big and provided shade for both houses. It also provided a supply of Horse Chestnuts each fall. Horse chestnuts look pretty much just like the lovely confections we used to buy in newspaper from the man on the corner in London or at the Big Christmas Market in Lincoln (chestnuts, mulled wine, music, mmmm!) then carry around to warm our hands and finally, when they were cool enough, eat. However, Horse Chestnuts are not edible. As a kid, I had no idea how good real chestnuts
are so I did not miss them. Horse Chestnuts come off the tree in green spiky balls. This stage is fun to throw. The spikes are just sharp enough to encourage caution, but not really sharp enough to do much damage. Crafty children could carefully peal off the outer spiky layer to reveal the nut in side. With the help of an old nail, you could easily put a hole through the middle to string for necklaces. We spent hours at it.
The "Horse Chestnut Tree" also supplied a lot of big soft leaves. Once the spiky green balls were collected, we used to pile the leaves near the porch and jump off the side into the pile (how did we survive

our childhoods?).
Back here in the South, Fall isn't just about the leaves. Summer is ending here too. This little Cicada exoskeleton looks as if he has curled up to for a winter's nap and the tiny little red bug looks as if he is wearing a tie for the Pumpkin Ball. Mushrooms are popping up all over and my camera stays busy.
I promised to share more photos of our Halloween decorations and here they are. As usual at my house, a mixture of old and new. The spiders came from children's parties from years ago, now they grace the pulls for the light each year. The kitty with the pumpkin glows with a soft orange light when you plug it in. It is vintage 1960's.
The treat bucket in the same photo is from the early 1990's (when will that count as vintage) and the irresistibly cute kitty pillow was 75% off on an after Halloween sale a few years back.

A vintage metal treat bucket from the 1950's shares the mantle with a glowing pair of Italian ceramic Jack O Lanterns.

I would like to leave you with a bit more inspiration.

You can watch Bugs Bunny and Witch Hazel in "A Witches Tangled Hare" at

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8459036700047862929#

Bugs Bunny and an Interesting Monster in "Primus"
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOWgZW3di7w

Walt Disney's "Lonesome Ghosts" at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVF5QK2uPMk&feature=related

and a Donald Duck cartoon from 1954 titled "Trick or Treat" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skdVouumMk4
These cartoons were big excitement for this little kid. If you are not familiar with them, enjoy and be sure to let me know what you think.

Kat

Treats and tricks, Halloween

Is your mouth watering? This is another example of how spoiled I am. Raspberry pancakes! Served with a nice pot of Earl Grey tea (Twinnings, of course). My little corner of the world is most certainly civilized.
Last week I promised more photos of Halloween decorations. We are lucky enough to have several items from my Sweet Husband's childhood. This pirates costume from the 1950's probably looked adorable on him. Do you remember these big masks with the little eye holes? I remember a Cinderella costume with a similar mask (pretty with plastic blond hair of course). I also had a witch costume one year where the witches hat was molded as part of the mask. It was not round, so if you can imagine this black cone stood up in front but when I turned around, you could see the inside of the mask at the top. I didn't care. There was a magical excitement involved in putting on a costume like this.

If I close my eyes I can see Monroe (the street we lived on back then) it is dark, but every house has the porch lights on. Most have Jack O'Lanterns out front. You had to lift the chin of the mask a little to go up and down steps.
It was always at least a little chilly, some years we had to wear coats over our costumes (if it wouldn't fit underneath) so the mask had to be a good one or no one could tell who you were pretending to be.

I remember my big sister Margaret taking us around. I am sure there were more fun things for a teen to do, I don't know if my parents made her take us, or if she volunteered, I do know that she made sure we had fun and she kept us safe. Wouldn't it be wonderful if a teen aged girl was all that you needed to be safe now? Margaret paid attention with us as to what treats came from where. Back then, we still got home made treats from a few people. If we knew them, we could eat the treats (not before we got home and had them all inspected even then, 1960s for me,
there were a few spoil sports out there).
These trick-or-treat bags were kept from my Sweet Husband's childhood. I carried some a lot like these. Some years it was a pillowcase. Some years stores would use treat bags instead of plain brown paper for the week before Halloween.

Close your eyes again and remember with me (or imagine) you can smell the wood smoke from peoples chimneys. There are big dry crunchy leaves on the ground, maybe a light sprinkling of frost or even snow. There are little groups of giggling children running from house to house (with grown ups or older siblings calling to tell them not to run). We knocked on the door and called "Trick or treat, trick or treat, we want something good to eat". The we waited with glowing faces and sacks held open to see what sort of delights might be dropped in our bags. Some years we also took little cartons for UNICEF. Pennies were collected then taken back to church and sent to UNICEF. I think the idea was that we should trick or treat for UNICEF instead of for candy, but we did both and no one seemed to mind. I hope we always said "Thank you" I do remember doing so. I remember Mrs. Norda trying to guess who we were, there was always a twinkle in her eye, since we were there with Margaret, it would be easy to guess, but we didn't

think about that. All we thought about was fun.


Our Halloween decorations are a mix of old and new. A brewery called The Shipyard produces "Pumpkin Head Ale" a tasty treat for the grown ups and the bottles are worthy of display. The paper Pumpkin and Halloween post cards are vintage and tons of fun.

I'll show you more decorations next week.

Little Spontaneous is not scared of Halloween, we had a scary thunderstorm the other night. She took refuge under a chair. Doesn't she have the most expressive little face? She did get thoroughly cuddled after I took the photo. How could I resist.

The season is changing slowly and gracefully. My Sweet Hubby suggested that I should post a photo of the dogwood each week as it progresses into winter. I think it is an excellent suggestion, so here is the first. If you look you can see the little red berries and some leaves are starting to turn red.

Here in the woods, this time of year, mushrooms are popping up all over. My front lawn, at first glance,
looks like it has been used for putting practice. There are little white mushroom balls all over it. I took this one on the way back from our walk the other night. It was starting to get dark. Isn't it magical? The next picture really is of blue mushrooms. I don't know what causes the color but these are very blue. The big one looks, from the top like a blueberry doughnut, perhaps just a little ghostly.

The creative process is messy. I took a little time out from work and school to play with my sewing machine. My project is almost done, I just need to finish up with some hand work. Shall I show you next week what it is?

Another treat, German Apple Pancakes. The pancake is literally a pan cake, it forms the bowl. The filling includes apples and bananas and cheese and all sorts of lovely spices, topped up with a little dab of lemon curd. The tea cozy is one we brought back from the UK, it is currently keeping another lovely pot of "Twinnings" Earl Grey, warm (yes, I am spoiled rotten)!

Last, but not least. The other night, when I got home from work, I was greeted by this adorable sight. My Sweet Hubby and that silly cat. It makes me smile. Most evenings are getting a little chilly so snuggling is once again a very good idea.

I hope your evenings are snugly and full of purrs.

See you next time,

Kat

from Kat's little corner of the woods.