Halloween

I try to leave some sort of decoration behind when I run out of flowers and pick up the vases at school for the last time. this year every teacher got a black cat with whiskers. I was able to buy sticky pumpkins which hid the paper clip I used to hold up my cat. I also bought leaves of different colors as a base so if the gourd from my garden happened to rot, it wouldn't make a mess on anyone's desk.

People decorate their yards for Halloween almost as much as they do for Christmas. This year, as there were expectations of Sandy's high winds, people were asked to put away those Halloween decorations before the storm and before the holiday itself.

The wind and rain arrived, but on my road we only lost a few tree limbs, one tree and one power pole. Our electricity was out for about 20 hours. We were delighted to see this fellow and the rest of his crew...  

Later that week I noticed that some people had gone to the trouble of getting their Halloween decorations out again...

or this witch managed to stay on her broom throughout the storm.


Another family decided that they would look ahead to Thanksgiving with the silliest turkey I've ever seen.

Here the biggest pumpkins turned moldy, maybe as a protest to having sat outdoors during Sandy's wet weather, but what a great collection of carved pumpkins!


And then there are people who don't bother carving their small pumpkins, but do handle them with a sense of humor! This old fellow is held up by his cane as he hangs out (pun intended) on the main street in Rutland, Vermont...

Mary and I circled around the block and even pulled into the driveway to get this picture! And she can't wait to see how he looks in this blog...























Strange creatures seem to show up for Halloween...

And Halloween is a harbinger of snow. Here's Terrible Mountain just across the valley from my house...

And a beaver has found my pond. This dinghy is resting on a wooden trailer which was on dry land.

The beaver has raised the water level in the pond and now the back of the dinghy is under water! There is water all around it!

I now must ponder how to rescue my dinghy!