Pumpkins, Guts, & Gloves

Pulp oozes around our hands, slipping, sliding through fingers.  Wearing the pumpkins’ guts proudly, like a new fashion statement, we reach inside for more.  Seeds go in one bowl, innards in another.

Checking out what's next at the pumpkin patch, hand in hand...melt my heart.

At the pumpkin patch, we surveyed our options.  It wasn’t long before I noticed the enormous orange ball in the green wagon.  One down, three to go.

“This one’s perfect!” Our boy is waving us down.  As my husband pulls up with the four wheeling wagon, he inspects the find.  “Nope, looks like there’s a hole in the bottom kiddo.  You’ve got to look all around it.  We don’t want a rotten one, right?”

Two kids, bubbling with giggles run for another possibility.  On their way, they get distracted by a black cow.  Giggles give way to whispers before they call us over to show us what they think are baby cows sleeping under a piece of siding lying across the ground.  When the baby critters awaken, emerging to chow on a small broken pumpkin, it’s easy to see that they’re cute baby piglets.

And we’re all smiling as the kids run off to climb the hay bale pyramid, drive the old tractors, and try to feed the ponies some hay.

“Come on kids, let’s pick our pumpkins!”

“This one?”  She lifts a little pumpkin high in the air.

“That’s too small to carve.”

She picks out three more tiny pumpkins that nestle perfectly in her sweet little hands as we continue to tell her they’re too small to get seeds from.

I remembered the one she had brought home from school.  “Actually, go ahead and get a small one.  You can carve the one from your field trip and paint the little one you get today, okay?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

Adding a pumpkin with a smooth front, perfect for a cool carving, for me and one without any holes for our boy and we lugged the heavy wagon to the front to pay.

A few dozen more camera clicks and we climb into the truck to head home, thinking about all the seeds we’ll have to roast, after we wear our fashionable pumpkin gut gloves.

I'm linking up with JDaniel4's Mom's Halloween Traditions.  We finished carving our pumpkins last night and I'll be sharing those pics on Wednesday.  In the meantime, you can see some of past years' pumpkin carvings here and here!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Meet Me on the Mountain

Maggie:           U going 2 hit moguls w me this time? I’ve got ur lift tickets & my season pass. Meet me @ cabin so we can hit slopes 2gether! lmk if u need me 2 bring anything else!

Adrianna:        Thx Mags!

Lauren:            I’ve got Cass & rental. Heading 4 mountains now!

Cassie:             Seriously need 2 invest n electric sock company. Gonna freeze my a** off!

Maggie:           LOL! No ur not. Ur gonna b huddled n front of fire n lodge w warm cocktail all day, prob flirtin ur a** off!

Lauren:            Bwahahaha!

Adrianna:        See if he’s got a friend this time, will u?!

Cassie:             Hmm…like a 2 for 1. Will do!

Last week, Write on Edge prompted us to write a text with a 160 word limit.  I got really hung up on the text message part of it and chose to write it as a piece of microfiction, still within the word limit.

This week, Write on Edge has prompted us to write a piece where athleticism plays a role.  Glossing over the text message part of the prompt last week has been irking me.  And being irked for a whole week is kind of ridiculous.

So, to let my subconscious rest, I decided to tackle this week's prompt that had a 400 word limit within last week's format, coming in at 111 words and putting out that annoying irking whisper in my head!

What do you think?

22 things I { have } done

In my life, I HAVE...

1)  Hiked a glacier when I was five years old (or so I've been told).

2)  Been in a near fatal car accident.

3)  Carved some cool pumpkins, including Yoda and C3PO & R2-D2.

4)  Lived on both the East & West coasts.

5)  Started a chapter of the Young Astronauts Club at one of my schools & it promptly filled up with all boys.

6)  Once worn a full leg cast as an infant that would have fit inside the toe opening of the cast I wore when I was 21.

7)  Planned my own wedding and got married. (Turns out, I can throw a pretty good party!)

8)  Graduated college with honors.

9)  Handed my husband a pair of scissors and insisted that he cut my hair.  (My best friend now does the cutting for me...but, that's another story for another time!)

10) Played the piano, violin, and flute.

11) Had two beautiful babies, became a Mama, and felt my heart swell.

12) Found friends that have become sisters.

13) Volunteered as a kid and as an adult.

14) Been on a boat on a bayou, dipped my toes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.

15) Watched the ponies swim the channel from Assateague to Chincoteague while on my grandfather's boat.

16) Woken up to said ponies in their front yard.  (They'd gotten out of their pen & were going for a stroll around the island!)

17) Been to Oakland A's & San Francisco Giants baseball games, a Seattle Seahawks & San Francisco 49'ers preseason game at the Stick, and a couple of minor league hockey games.

18) Learned how to be an advocate for my children, when they need it.

19) Had my heart broken.

20) Found strength in places I didn't know I had it after life altering events.

21) Tried new creative processes that scared or intimidated me before.

22) Found a way to incorporate rainbows into my everyday life.

Not sure what's in my water today or what happened to my scheduling, but this is my third post today (that has Never happened before!).  So, don't forget to check out my From Left to Write Book Club post: Michel LeRoux ~ Pacific Ocean ~ New Traditions and what's growing in my backyard, WW ~ An Apple Tree's Journey!

Michel LeRoux ~ Pacific Ocean ~ New Traditions

Fall of 1995 saw both my husband and I in Vancouver, British Columbia. But, we weren't together. Actually, we had yet to even meet!

When we did meet in the spring of '97, began dating a year later, got engaged and later married, it was quite an easy decision for us to head back to the Pacific Northwest & British Columbia for our honeymoon.

Many new traditions began while honeymooning. One, was to forgo individual wedding presents, and later anniversary presents, in favor of picking out a piece of original art to enjoy together in our home.

Only one hardfast rule applies this tradition: the piece of art we choose has to "speak" to both of us. You see, we have quite different aesthetics, so initially, we thought this one guideline would be a challenge for us.

Out early, we walked the nearly deserted streets before the galleries opened (you could say we were a wee bit anxious to get out and enjoy the city we loved so much!). Low in one gallery's window sat a stunning Michel LeRoux painting. We stopped to look and moved on.

Gallery after gallery, a restaurant for lunch, a pub my husband had stopped in at when he was there years earlier with his best friend for a pint, more galleries, a little shopping, and we returned to the gallery with the painting sitting low in the window.

They gladly pulled the piece that looked as if it were colored in strokes of light, rather than paint, into the middle of the gallery for a better look.

We looked at it. We kept looking at it. I was distracted for a bit by a gorgeous Marcelle Dube painting that I can still see inside my head to this day.  But, my gaze kept returning to the Michel LeRoux painting that we first set our eyes upon, hours earlier.

What we initially thought would be challenging - our rule - was quite simple for us.  We had found an original piece of art that captured, raptured, us both.  It needed to be in our home for us to enjoy for many more years to come...and for over a decade now, everyday we see it hanging on our wall, we've enjoyed it.

I found this video on YouTube filled with his art.  I don't know anything about where it came from and while our painting is not in there, it is a good representation of his work.

Our honeymoon destinations included Seattle, Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands, Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, and led to another favorite tradition to celebrate each year of marriage near the water.  Happily, Fort Bragg, California most frequently finds us on our anniversaries.

We look forward to the day we can return to the waterside locales, stocked full with smile worthy moments.  Until we can, we look up at our Michel LeRoux painting, remember, and smile.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

In Lost Edens, author Jamie Patterson struggles to save her marriage which may or may not be already over. Keeping her attempts a secret from her family, she attempts to mold herself into the wife her husband wants her to be.

As a member of From Left to Write book club, I received a copy of this book for review (book links are affiliate links, all other links I'm sharing are purely informational).  You can read other members posts inspired by Lost Edens by Jamie Patterson on book club day, October 27 at From Left to Write.

WW ~ An Apple Tree's Journey

With only a few leaves to speak of, this grafted apple tree was transplanted from my Mom's into our yard over two years ago on June 1st, 2009.

Each one of its six branches will grow a different variety of apples.

It sat quietly in our backyard through 2010, while continuing to grow.

And in 2011, we began to see some action. We saw little pink buds begin to form on her branches.

Those li'l pink buds bloomed into small white apple blossoms.

 

We have these guys to thank.

Can you see him?

 

What we thought for years were weeds (because they grow like crazy, we never planted them, and no matter how many times we take 'em out, they come back), though we now know the little blue flowers my wee girl loves to make me bouquets from are Forget-Me-Nots, have attracted the local bees.

And those bees went to work!

All their pollinating grew us eight apples this year. An unknown wild critter got one. He must have stood on his hind legs to reach it, but we could book the apple eating thief from the teeth mark evidence he left behind.

And then...

 

...we got to pick our very first apple off our apple tree!

It doesn't get any more organic, farm to table, green, easy, or delish that this!  The kidlets shared this one for breakfast the morning we picked it.

And the other six? Their Dad turned that into a GFCF apple pie! While it turned out mighty delish, we're still fine tuning the recipe for that one. Hopefully, I'll have it to share closer to the holidays.

What's growing in your backyard (or on a balcony or inside your house if you are sans yard)?

Linking up with some rockin' awesome Wordful/ish Wednesday peeps!

Seven Clown Circus, Parenting by Dummies, Project Alicia, Live and Love...Out Loud, Angry Julie Monday