After Halloween Haul ~ Mini Edition

Well, it's time for the After Halloween Haul! This year, it's going to be a mini haul. I found a few little things and was actually happy to get anything after Halloween. Any of you who went shopping this fall know that the Halloween and autumn items were wiped off the shelves way before the actual holiday. 

Since I have less stuff to share this year, I'll add a few pics of the items in use. So, starting with something that's worth picking up on sale each year: an orange string of lights. These are some nice, vibrant ones! And a cool feature of these is the black wire.

This is what they look like unlit:

This pack of lights is from Walgreens. In past years, I've found strings of 25 at Dollar Tree. But as you can see, this string has a generous 70 lights. I want to say this cost $1.99.

I mixed this string of lights in with an autumn flower garland. Here it is all lit up on the fernery. 

A few details:

These lights were the only thing I liked of what was left at Walgreens. The rest of what I have to share is from JoAnn's. I was so happy to find a little pack of these pumpkins there. I've easily painted over these white pumpkins in the past. So you can have these any color you like. 

If you shop at JoAnn's or Michaels, you've seen those little sprig things that you can fit into a floral arrangement. They make nice present decorations too. These were the last of these little green peas.

And here they are mixed in some velvety autumn leaves. I paired these up in a vase. I call this the peas and carrots mix. :)

Now for my last and probably favorite find: some giant red sunflowers. These have clips on the back, so you can easily attach them to other decorations or your jacket if you were feeling bold. ;)

They make nice pumpkin hats too!

JoAnn's had a lot of fall floral and wreaths left when I was there. If you're into dark purple, you'll probably find something you like.

As pretty as these giant red sunflowers were, I decided to add some extra bling to them. I added a big orange jewel to the center of each, some red star-shaped sequins, and some red glitter. I really like how they turned out! The glitter and jewels shimmer with any light source.

I was actually just at JoAnn's again last night and found one more of these flowers! The cashier said "And that will be a whopping 62 cents with tax" :) It was a fun surprise to find one more of these hiding under a shelf.

Actually, the fall sale stuff was much as it was the last time I was at JoAnn's (probably two weeks ago). It's still 80% off. So there is a point to going and looking. Although, I suggest going right before close so you can have the whole place to yourself. Here's one of the flowers in with an autumn display:

So, how did you guys do with the after Halloween shopping? I'd be curious to know what was left in your local stores. 🎃

Caramel Apples at The Elegant Farmer

I'm still soaking up what's left of our warm and sunny October! Today mom and I went for our yearly caramel apple at The Elegant Farmer in Mukwonago, WI. We had a perfect day for this. Here's my caramel apple, looking all gooey and shiny, resting in its pile of chocolate and Halloween jimmies. It's wearing almost a hat of peanuts and Packer jimmies. I basically tossed on scoops of whatever was there and hoped it would stick! Caramel dries pretty quickly, so I got to eat all those jimmies up with a spork later.

Mom was more sensible and had her apple cut into pieces.

 
I learned recently that The Elegant Farmer actually started as a working dairy farm in 1947. Now it is a shop filled with high end cheeses, fruit, and pretty much any kind of comfort food you can think of. This place is known for its brown bag pies. 

It's also known for the smiley face barn out front. I remember sharing photos of that previously.

Aside from picking up lots of tasty treats, you can also buy a pumpkin at The Elegant Farmer. As you know, I've got pumpkins covered already, but I still wanted to pose with some of theirs. They had some huge pumpkins and piles of warty gourds.

Behind the shop is a working train that still gives rides. This little girl ended up in most of my train pictures. She's covering her ears in every picture, because the train's whistle was so loud.

I love this photo I got of the train conductor. It's so colorful and wholesome with that American flag, and he looks like a jolly Santa Claus type figure.

This train happens to be riding along the last electric tracks in Wisconsin. I ran across a video that will give you an idea of what it's like to ride this train through the area.

I spotted some of these flowers in front of the barn. Does anyone know what these are? I think they're beautiful.

The ride home provided lots of colorful fall foliage! October is an awesome time to be driving through the country.

This Saturday is our annual Witches' Gathering, so you can expect some photos from that soon! For those who missed the announcement about my annual Halloween blog party, that's happening on October 25. So send me your costumed photos!

My pumpkin process from bloom to harvest

Something very exciting happened this summer. I started the process of growing my first pumpkins. Well, to be fair, the pumpkins starting growing themselves. They grew from the seeds of last year's pumpkins that sat outside all winter. Like many plants that start themselves, the vines grew heartily. At times a little too heartily.

I learned a lot about pumpkins this summer, like how to identify the gender of a pumpkin flower. I also learned how to pollinate the blooms myself, but I didn't end up needing that knowledge. There's no bee shortage around here and the bees loved the pumpkin blossoms! I also learned about how the plant starts "showing" as a little pumpkin bump grows under a female blossom.

Two female blossoms showing the start of two baby pumpkins.

This was so interesting that I began charting the pumpkins' progress.

One clue that this is a male blossom is that there is no little bump at its base. Other signs can be found by looking inside the blossom.

After noticing that one pumpkin was changing very rapidly, I decided to document the changes each week. Here is the process of a pumpkin's growth on the vine with the dates each photo was taken.

July 26 -You can see what's left of the blossom at the end of this little gourd.

August 1 - Look how much it has grown in a few days! As you can see, the blossom has dropped off.

Look at the cool stripes on the vine. If you enlarge this photo, you'll see some little stickers coming off the vine. It's hard to see them from far away, but you can sure feel them if you touch the vines or even the leaves!

August 5 - Look how fast it grew in 4 days! 

At this point, I started photographing the pumpkin with a quarter on it. I did this so it would be clear how much it had grown in comparison to the coin.

August 12 - The pumpkin is much rounder at this point and a deeper green.

The pumpkin is covered in rain drops from that morning's rain.

August 19 - The pumpkin is starting to change colors. See the little orange stripe in the middle?

I also got a shot of the pumpkin's bottom that day:

A close-up of the changing skin:

Just a few days later, the pumpkin started to turn somewhat orange all over:

August 21 - You can see a bit of a leaf there too.

August 26 - The pumpkin is now entirely orange!

September 4 - The pumpkin is a richer orange and getting ready to be harvested.

All through the pumpkin's growth, the mailman continued to come by and comment on its progress. He was really interested in how it was changing and worried that it might be too flat on one side from resting on the ground. He thought the pumpkin should be rotated. As it happened, the final harvest occurred just as he dropped by to deliver some mail! He got to be there for that cutting moment and he was happy to see that the pumpkin wasn't too flat on one side. For anyone who hasn't cut a pumpkin off a vine, here's a bit of advice: cut the vine at first, not the stem. The stem is really tough, even with a big, sharp knife!

So here are the two pumpkins, a big one and a medium sized one:

The larger one ended up being 41" around. I had thought it was a little larger than that before harvesting it. The smaller one is 35" around. To put that in perspective, the larger pumpkin is the equivalent of a ladies size 22 (US size according to some size charts I just found online). The medium one is about the same as a size 18. I'm comparing pumpkin circumference to waist size to show that these pumpkins are pretty adult sized.

Guess what I just noticed? A third pumpkin. Here it is as of today, September 29:

I'm thinking this pumpkin could be full size by Halloween!

Pumpkins can be bought, but I gained a lot of joy and some extra gardening knowledge from growing them. If you have some space to work with, I'd recommend trying this! You'll get an awesome feeling as you watch your pumpkins grow.

P.S. ~ Remember the Halloween music mix exchange from last year? If not, here's a link to last year's blog post: Let's Trade Our Halloween Music Mixes

Now that it's nearly October, I'd like to give this another go! If you exchanged with me last year and have a second CD's worth of new music, let's trade. :) Just shoot me an email here: contactartgirl@gmail.com with your address!