HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! Ghosts and Goblins and Long-Legged Witches and Things Things That Go Bump in the Night!!!

 And a Happy Halloween to one and all!  I looked at my last blog and said I'd be back in October, by all accounts that means that I made it.  Can you believe it is Oct 31st already.  Where did Oct go?

The weather here is now edging towards winter for sure.  We had some sleet and snow flurries yesterday, but today although it is pretty cold outside, 43 degrees, it is sunny, and the leaves are blowing to the ground.  Still have a good many of those leaves holding on for dear life, but soon the trees will be bare.

October was a busy month again for me or actually us!  The Christmas in the Woods show was held on Oct 10-11, and Oct 17-18.  It was a strange show to do this year.  Everyone in masks, plexiglass to talk through to customers, lines to get in since they only let so many in at a time, no entertainment, no music.........what a festival with no music!  Well at our cabin there was Christmas music playing and Colonial Christmas Music at that!  People were humming and dancing coming through our cabin.  It made for an attempt to make people think of the upcoming holidays.  Normally, this show would be our biggest of the year, but with less crowds due to Covid, we did manage to make 54% of what we did last year.  We were pleased to do this well.  So many others didn't do as well as us and for that we are grateful.  Bryan and I spent four days together and that was priceless in my book.  We chatted, had our lunches together of beef and mashed potato parfait, grilled chicken salads, and chicken noodle and broccoli cheddar soups!  Saw my friend, Eileen and her hubby, Art.  Actually had some time to chat to them.  Oh, and we did actually sell 44 lamps!  So all and all it was a good two weekends.

Here is a really cool panoramic view of our cabin in the woods!  Bryan took this awesome photo for me.

Here is a photo of my helper, I think this was when we were both falling asleep from all the inactivity at the show.  It seemed that when people came in for a lamp, they all came in at the same time and we'd be busy for a while and then nothing for an hour or so!  We jokingly said we should bring Yatzee to play!

Besides lamps I had also made 217 of these hoop ornaments that I had seen on Pinterest last year.  They sold extremely well!

My nephew, George, from "Chef" Geo's Fantastical Kitchen of Facebook fame, had a cooking contest where you had to choose a recipe using either potatoes, squash, carrots, or candy corn.  There were some fantastic entries.  It wasn't based on taste obviously since it was a virtual contest, but presentation and looks of the food were judged impartially.  I managed to win first place with my entry of Hickory-Smoked Ham and Potato Soup!  It really was a win-win as Bernie enjoyed it too!  My prize was that I got to pick a coffee from a Knoxville TN company called Pedal Java, and I chose Devil's Food.  I am enjoying a cuppa right now and it is so good.  Second place was won by my niece, Char, down in Alabama and her entry was Sausage and Apple Stuffed Acorn Squash.  It looked delicious!

Here was my entry..... of course being a Meyer I had to serve up this fantastic soup with chocolate fudge cake with buttercream icing.  As a Meyer we treat our desserts like a main dish!!

Also, going on at this same time was a blog that I mentioned in last month's post, Autumn Jubilee 2020, created by Carole, at From My Carolina Home. I was following along on Fridays making a fall-themed quilt.  Here are two rows of it!  I am now putting it all together. 

There was also a row of leaves and pumpkins.  Stay tuned for that reveal in my November post.

Also, there is a group that posts photos of what we make at Autumn Jubilee 2020, as there are many projects that happen during the month.  There is felt needlecraft project, as well as a quilted tote bag, to name a few.  Carole also shows her tablescapes on her blog often, so I did a little tablescape of my own to post to the group.  Here is what that looked like......

It was fun to do this and the tablecloth was made from a prior Autumn Jubilee as well as the felt needlework on the lazy susan underneath the flowers.

On a recent walk down our little dirt road beside the house, I came upon some really large leaves.  I was showing Bernie a photo of one I took and he said I needed to put my hand on it to show just how big it is.  On my next walk, I did just that.  This is how big this leaf is.  It is from a Tulip Poplar tree.  I just randomly chose a big one, but I'm sure there were more even bigger than this one if I looked more.  

Here is the lot behind our house now, it has been cleared off and leveled out.  There are so many leaves on it now too.  Fall is definitely here, I'd say!!

That is about all I have to share this month except for the blog contest I had last month.  If you recall, I had begun to count how many items I had with leaves on them, and stopped counting at 35.  I put out there to you all, to guess how many "pumpkin" items I have in our home.  I had two people guess in the contest, my friend, Eileen, won the "Autumn Leaves" table runner with her guess of 59.

I decided that since only two people actually participated in the contest, that they both would receive a table runner.  Thus my second table runner is being sent as we speak to Stella Miller.  She guessed 25.  Here is that runner.

Congratulations to both of my winners!  Oh, the correct answer was 81 pumpkins.  

Well, wishing everyone a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  See ya next month!!

Hugs, 

Debbie