2008 Halloween Photos Finally Posted

After some difficulty with Flickr the Halloween 2008 photos are finally posted. Well, most of them. There are still a bunch left to sift through, including some shots from inside the house and from the hours spent cleaning up the rotting jack o'lanterns yesterday. 

Not to mention a few choice shots from our inaugural Pumpkin Massacre, like this one right here:

You can view the pictures at this link.

More are on the way soon. I just need to work on them a bit.

I know, I know...I'm really bad about the pics this year. Sorry.

How About a Box o' Halloween Awesomeness?

I recently ordered a tiny, twisted, handmade jack o'lantern from the Pumpkin Hollow Shop (an Etsy shop). This is what arrived yesterday:

The little guy with the hat in the foreground is what I actually ordered. Also pictured are two Halloween compilation CDs, a package of Ghostly Glow incense (which smells absolutely amazing, by the way) and a couple of Halloween pencils secured with two plastic rings: one skull and one bat.

These other items were thrown in for free by the artist and accompanied by a very gracious note of thanks for my purchase. I have to tell you that this is about as much fun as I've ever had opening anything. From the moment I saw the pumpkin and bat stickers on the outside of the box I knew that care had been taken to make this package special.

Pumpkin Hollow is run by Pumpkinrot (whom I've mentioned here numerous times) and bean, two very talented folks who have much to offer lovers of Halloween, horror and all things grim and gruesome. Pumpkinrot has started selling hand made props and stationery featuring his work while bean keeps a steady inventory of amazing, unique decorative pumpkins like the one that I bought:

If this sort of thing is your bag then I strongly recommend you pay their sites a visit. They never disappoint.

Making Jack-o-lanterns from Scratch

We built a garden this year. Naturally, that meant I would be planting at least one of these:

It seems to be doing okay. It should only be a matter of time until the Great Pumpkin rises from the back yard. We've certainly had plenty of rain. I'm a little concerned about the paleness of the leaves, though. As much as I've been enjoying all the recent thunderstorms a little more sunlight would probably do this thing some good.

Then there's the matter of the beetles that have started hanging around the place. Something will have to be done about that.