We don’t get trick-or-treaters on our street – no sidewalks and no street lights – so I follow along with family members in Boston, whose highly-decorated street is something of a Halloween destination. The tally they posted last night topped out at 1,140. Mine was the usual, zero, in spite of which I bought my usual bowlful of tiny candy bars. They’re so cute. I also had a beautiful taffy apple from a party, and cut it open to discover that taffy apples have a heart.
We’re deep in the heart of autumn now, my favorite season. Every year I make a couple of knit, sewn, or otherwise constructed pumpkins for my collection, and drive five or six miles down the road to the Wells Pumpkin Farm for their irresistible selection of pumpkins grown in fields. I like to combine the real and the artificial in groups, on the hearth, on the porch, wherever they fit. It always makes me smile to see them.
Here’s one of the farm’s pumpkin-adjacent gourds, impersonating a plump ballerina. She definitely deserves a place of honor on the kitchen table, supported by an elegant piece of lace, guarded by candlesticks, and with a pot of enthusiastic chrysanthemum attendants.
The deer, too, enjoy decorating. Here’s Mr. Six Point Buck working on his topiary project, the burning bush in the front yard. As he walked away I was able to see that Mr. Six Point has become Mr. Three Point. One antler is missing. It’s not time yet for antlers to shed. Did he lose a fight? Run into a car? Have an antler infection? Whatever the mishap, perhaps his art project will make him feel better. Art projects do that for me.
The whole yard is its own art project right now, the big maple both carpet and canopy, a strip of sunshine lighting the green space in between. Here’s Doug walking through the leaflit afternoon, telling me not to take his picture. Too late, Doug. You’re important for a sense of scale.
