Pumpkin - to be continued.

What is this? You wouldn't recognized this as that big orange pumpkin, would you?
Remember when we carved a face in it and lit it up with a candle?

We left it in the front yard for several weeks.

The inside turned black and the teeth started to shrivel.

We decided to move it to the back yard.
It was beginning to sag and the lid fell in.

Then it collapsed. Do you still see one of the eyes?
We are going to leave it here all winter.

Now it is pretty squishy. Wonder what will happen next?

We'll keep watching.

Finding things that used to be hidden

Now the leaves have fallen down and the trees are bare. Now you can see the nests that birds hid in the limbs. I expected to look up and see nests like this one, high in a maple tree.
But I didn't expect this one. It's in an apple tree. It's only as high off the ground as my shoulder.
We walked right past it all summer and didn't know it was there!

I told you so

Just look at that silly Magnolia tree.

It was trying to hang on to its green leaves.

One cold night or two...and PHOMP!

All the leaves fell off.

I told you so.

Fighting over Crabapples

This morning is dark and drizzly. You might think that the birds would sleep in and that it would be a quiet morning. Nope. There's a lot going on in the side yard. The nights have gotten cold- below freezing - and this has ripened the little crabapples.

Now they are perfect for the birds to eat.

But there IS a problem.

High in the tall maples a flock of Cedar Waxwings gather. They want those crabapples!

In the crabapple tree a Robin is fussing : "Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!"
Robin thinks the crabapple tree is his! He wants to eat all the crabapples.
He hops from branch to branch, grabbing little red berries and stuffing them in his mouth.

The Cedar Waxwings wait. When the Robin is on one side of the tree, one or two of them sneak down to the other side and grab some crabapples.

When Robin sees them, he flies over to chase them away.

Then another Cedar Waxwing sneaks down to the other side of the tree.

Robin fusses "Chuck! Chuck!" but he can't chase all the Cedar Waxwings away.

I'll bet all those crabapples are gone, gone, gone by the end of the day.

A good day for sleeping

At first when I looked in the stall I couldn't see Scotty at all. Then I looked down. What a big brown lump!
He had pillowed his chin on the fresh bedding and he was really sound asleep.
He wouldn't wake up when I petted him or talked to him or tried to lift up his head. He didn't wake up when I took his picture.
I wonder if he was having some nice dreams.

Fall leaves

Some of the trees have dropped almost all their leaves.Their branches look bare.Some of the trees are just now showing their colors.
The oak is red and purple. The maple behind it is yellow.

And the sassafras is brilliant with red-orange and yellow.

But the stubborn magnolia tree is still green. It thinks it lives somewhere else, somewhere where it is not yet Fall.

Silly tree.

Soon it will get too cold for those leaves and they will all turn brown and fall off overnight.

What happened to the pumpkin

Remember the big orange surprise that Socks found in the yard?

Did you guess what was going to happen to it?

Tonight I cut the top off
and scooped out the insides.

Granddad saved the seeds.

The outside was so tough and the shell so thick that it took a strong man to make the first cuts.

Granddad supervised the process. Socks wasn't sure about it.Slowly a face began to appear.

It took a long time to cut it.
I trimmed up the teeth. They are pretty sharp.
The big orange pumpkin turned into a jolly looking Jack-o-lantern.
Until dark.

Then it looked a little spooky.

Happy Halloween!