Justine's Halloween: A Beautiful Autumn Day

Today was a perfect autumn day with temps around 70° and sunny skies. It was a nice day to walk around and take some photos. The plan had been to check out the Farm Girl Antiques store. For some reason the store hours online did not match reality and the doors were locked. So I took a few pics through the windows.

I can't say it was a real torturous experience looking through the windows, as far as wishing I could get at all that Halloween stuff. That's because the only Halloween stuff they appeared to have was what you're seeing in this window display. It was weird. They did appear to have the Christmas displays started, though. So I guess this will be a place to revisit in December.

"Rotten Pumpkin Juice - To get an orange complexion"

There were some fun photo opportunities at a small fruit market on the way back.

Nice stem!

Some neat things happened with the lighting here. The sun was just naturally spot lighting this little guy. I love mini pumpkins.

The fruit market had out some wagons that I'm pretty sure were antique. This place has been in business a really long time, so these probably were original to the business.

Pretty mums, hey?

These next ones were taken at home.

The leaves are just barely starting to turn red.

I grew zinnias as I do every year from seed. This year I used only seeds from last year's crop. Last year's zinnias were very interesting. There were regular zinnias growing off the same plant as cactus zinnias! And there were different color flowers on the same plant! Every year it has become more interesting with cross pollination.

So, I'd been interested to see what might happen with the seeds from last year's plants. Well, things happened alright. Check out this beautiful paint splatter effect on the petals.

And this takes the cake. A zinnia growing out of another zinnia! And it's an orange one growing out of a pink one. Wouldn't it be crazy if yet another flower grew out of the top of the orange one?

I love the contrast of these lemon yellow leaves against an intense blue sky.

A very autumn bird bath. I guess this doesn't look all that accessible for the birds but it does make for a pretty picture.

I'm going to leave you guys with a YouTube video I ran across last night. You know those Christmas fireplace videos with the instrumental music and crackling sounds? Well, someone made one for Halloween. I don't hear crackling, but the music is beautiful. I have been enjoying watching the fire move too. The black cat andirons and tiny cauldron are a nice addition too.