Fall foliage

Thanks to my brother for sending me the link to this cartoon:


From the webcomic xkcd (whose author has allowed the reuse of this image here.)

Cultural knowledge

When DD asked yet again this year what they eat in England for Thanksgiving, I realized we have been failing miserably to teach her about both her cultures. It was brought home to me even more when I realized after reading Daffodilly's post about Bonfire Night, that my children have absolutely no idea what it is! Sadly, our children are really not bi-cultural at all, though they don't go quite as far as chanting that "England is evil." (Well, they haven't yet, but it's a while since we've been back there - DS really doesn't remember the UK at all at this point!)

Perhaps one day I will have to make good on my threat to send them to live with their cousins in England for a year or so . . .

Scary pumpkins

DD commented as we walked out of the house today, "Mom, the pumpkins are looking really scary today."
Scary? Today, but not yesterday? In broad daylight? I didn't understand at first, but that's because I wasn't looking at the pumpkins . . . when I did, I saw what she meant.

They were beginning to go mouldy:


And one was beginning to ooze and collapse - those horizontal wrinkles weren't there yesterday:

Apparently it's not been cold enough recently - with unseasonably warm temperatures over the last week (in the 60s at times during the day), the pumpkins were beginning to rot already. Given what I paid for them and what a short time they lasted, the ceramic pumpkins I've seen on sale are beginning to look like an excellent bargain in comparison. Of course, the ceramic ones wouldn't be as much fun to prepare each year . . .

New England fall weekend

This was Columbus Day weekend in the United States. This is traditionally a weekend when the roads here are swamped with out-of-staters driving slowly 'leaf peeping'. As the weather was just stunningly gorgeous, with not a cloud in the sky and temperatures reaching the 70's we decided the heck with petrol prices - we'd head out in the car in search of fall foliage to photograph too! Although a lot of the colours seemed very muddy, and we didn't think the colour was necessarily at its peak, there were still some beautiful sights.


What's for sale? Not the lone pumpkin, or even the house! It's the dead corn stalks! Yes, really! I don't know what it is about dead cornstalks, but Americans (around here at least) like to decorate their porches and mailboxes with them in the fall.



We drove past the insanity that is Yankee Candle ("the scenter of the Universe"!) beginning in the fall all the way through to the New Year. You'd think they didn't sell candles in New York and New Jersey. Parking two deep on the grass! I don't need candles that badly! Nor do I need to visit their version of "Old World Europe where fairytale dreams come to life and every day is Christmas." Yuck! I suppose for many Americans it's very original and 'cute', but we moved on to some authentic New England scenery just a few miles down the road.


That's a real live (and very noisy) chicken in the front yard of this house!


A hitching post with burning bush.


Small town New England celebrating with a 'Fall Festival'. Games for the kids, lots of things to eat (fried dough with maple cream - yumm!), crafts being sold, music and dance performances (we missed the Morris dancers though - would have liked to see them), and lots of money being generated for local causes like Boy Scouts.


Every now and then a balloon escaped . . .


Despite the general muddiness (to my mind) of the colours, there were still some stunning trees!

Fall

I was hoping when I took this that you'd see the colours on the hillside in the background. I'm happy that the tomatoes and peppers have not succumbed to frost yet. The pot on the right had (dead/dying) nicotiana in it that I pulled out and replaced with the chrysanthemum today. I may try to overwinter the geraniums as they are doing so well but haven't figured out where in the house I'd put them. The pumpkins won't get carved until closer to Halloween - the temperatures are supposed to be back up in the 70's this week and carved pumpkins will rot much faster. Is it fall yet with temperatures like that?