In search of The Great Pumpkin...

Thanksgiving weekend was full of family and food!
My Aunt hosted a huge family reunion and I was able to connect
with many loved ones I don't get to see often enough.
I stayed the night out at my folks place with my awesome nieces
and we took advantage of the dry-ish weather to visit the local pumpkin patch...

What can I say about a field full of these plump orange orbs?

Always a favourite to photograph...

Brother Dan, affectionately known as BroGorman, thought so too...

Seems to be a quintessential autumn thing to do...

Wandering up and down the rows, looking for just the right one...

Exploring all the angles...

And then...Yes! This one...definitely this is the one she wanted!

We took a little drive up to the top of the hill and found this pretty boy...

Hello beautiful!

Oh and we found the best little pigpen too...

This big boy was separated from the gals...

I supposed he was only there for his...ahem...services...

Even though he had a smirk on his face, I felt a bit lonely for him...

Ah yes, the girl from the country who comes to visit her folks and roams around looking 

at other peoples country scenes...

It's different out here though. Flat farm lands...big open spaces...my home is amongst the woods

and sometimes I long for the views of the valleys and fields...

So a lovely weekend with family...so many of the babies I once knew all grown

up with babies of their own. 

That's the way though isn't it? 

Life marches on in wondrous ways.

Cherish these times.

New kid on the block...

Sometimes things have to sit and simmer before they "become".

I had made a mouse that ended up looking like a rat but I wanted a mouse.

Then I needed the eyes from the rat for the new mouse.

So the rat sat in a corner of my studio, blind and on the back burner....

Until one day I thought "this little guy needs a life".

I don't like to have too many UFO's in my studio.

(that's 'unfinished objects')

I had just got a new shipment of eyes and they were just the ticket to 

get this little guy back on his little rat feet agin.

But it wasn't just the eyes...he needed something else...

Oh, I know...how about some work socks and gumboots?

Out came the Fimo clay and I baked a fresh new pair.

Now since it's harvest time I figured maybe a little pumpkin was in order...

Yup...things were looking up for the young rat lad.

Of course he might need a wee cap with all this rain we've been having...

Acorn tops are the perfect soloution!

Some donkey fir for whiskers.

And we shall call him 'Percy'!

I made him a little wooden platform covered in nice felt and did a blanket stitch around the edges with some vintage linen thread from Northern Ireland

 (thanks for the thread Gillian!)...

 One last look...

Available in here my etsy shop 
Sorry, Percy has now been sold!

harvest time...

Sometimes I spot an absolutely perfect photo op...

This time it was a gorgeous autumn day and the pumpkins were out in all their glory!

... basking in the October sun...

How could you not love all of those bald orange heads!

 ...just waiting to be picked, taken home, carved and

 to be the one shining it's light through a dark, fall evening ...

...or maybe turned into a thousand pies!

Nothing signals the end of October like these giants of all veggies...

There they sit in fields and gardens, after months of care and attention...

 ...along with crisp apples, the last of the harvest.

And just like that, I woke this morning to frigid air.

As I walked with Griffin, my breath swirled around in the morning light.

A light frost covered the leaves.

Is it really time to say goodbye to summer?

I would say so!

Hello to my woolen hats and gloves.

Don the leather boots and light the stove.



"They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere

When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,

And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;

But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock."

James Whitcomb Riley