Leftover Pumpkins

After sharing all these photos recently, I realized that I had some Halloween leftovers for you guys. I have a number of pumpkin photos as well as a few autumn plants. I thought their colors would look pretty in with the pumpkins.

I love pumpkins sitting on wood fence posts. I don't know what it is, I just always have. I really like the look of an old wood fence too, especially those split wood types. This is a funny memory to share, but I remember I had a class in high school that would sometimes get pretty boring. There was a window in the room and I would stare out of it. Part of my view was a split rail fence and for some reason I was really focused on it. 

How do you think these pumpkins have stayed on the tops of this fence all this time? Maybe they're nailed in. It seems like at the very least a squirrel should have knocked a few over.

Before I share more pumpkins, I just remembered another split wood fence pic I took! The fence in this is more split rail. The woods to the left of the street have been amazing to walk through this autumn.

Here's an example of what you'd see across the street.

And above your head:

OK, back to the pumpkins. This big one was grown in the "children's garden" where people tend to veggies through the summer. The last few years they've grown giant pumpkins and it has been fun to watch their progress.

He's a jolly one. 

See the little ants someone drew on there for the spider? And how about that crazy bat in the back?

My personal pumpkin that didn't get carved:

I like this shot of the pumpkins we had a choice of to carve. I realize I've been saying this about nearly every photo, but this one is now my computer's wallpaper. 

This big one was near the carving station too. 

Blending in:

I've found that I have a massive collection of colorful leaf and forest photos, so those will probably be next. They may even need to be split into two blog posts. The trees were beautiful at the end of October this year. 🍁

Happy Halloween! Check out these bright and cheerful pumpkins!

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you are all having a fun day. I'm going to share some photos from the local jack-o-lantern display. Our village does something similar to Bayview's Pumpkin Pavilion but on a smaller scale. This year I carved a happy little jack-o-lantern and mixed things up by carving triangles for eyes instead of circles. 😉 That lightbulb gives the appearance of it peeking to the side.

My Mom's pumpkin:

Her pumpkin has something creeping up on it...

You have your choice of pumpkins. So you go in the gazebo and pick one to get started. It's free to carve, if you leave your pumpkin on display.

I ended up choosing a small one because scooping those guts out (especially with the small plastic kid tools) takes a while! 

Here are a few of my favorites from the display. Check out those eyelashes!

I'm not sure how that cat pumpkin has such a bright reddish glow. I didn't see any others with that. Do you think someone scraped so much out of it that it had a thin skin?

This one is so cute, like a little emoji. 

A sun or sunflower:

They have you carve a circle in the back so they can string the lights through. Here's a backside view:

A sinister drooler:

I wonder if someone used part of the circle they cut out in the back to make this tongue. The teeth look taped on now that I look at this. Maybe someone brought some orange paper to add?

A spiderweb:

I bet this is Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas.

I think that seed made an accidental eye.

Little bows:

An inside view:

This is the giant inflatable pumpkin they bring out each year. I know from social media that they had a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man inflatable that was massive. I think there was a wind issue or something happened to him because I haven't seen him full of air yet.

We had a lot of happy jack-o-lanterns at this event. I saw very few menacing ones.

This will give you an idea of how they look lined up on the bleachers.

After the summer-like days we've had this past week, I'm afraid that the pumpkins are looking a lot different from what you see here. It has been 80° for a few days after all! Yesterday, mine had become a jolly gaping mouth full of leaves and Mom's was looking like a grump. A squirrel was having the time of its life with these pumpkins and I think knocked a few off the bleachers. Something did, anyway. I got a real fright, because those pumpkins were near me at the time. I wonder what these look like today?

Have a good, spooky rest of the day! The weather has taken a turn for the dark and windy here, so it is feeling like Halloween now. 🎃 

Bayview Pumpkin Pavilion 2024

Last weekend was perfect for the Bayview Pumpkin Pavilion because of the super mild weather. We'd had temps in the 70s last Friday. Nice and warm for this swamp monster....

Talk about attitude. This guy was creeping out of the water. He's referred to as "The Creature from the Humboldt Park Lagoon". Isn't the green lighting perfect?

The black light sign for the event:

Remember the zombies? I think this guy may have been new.

I like the reaper's wings. They're like boney frames. 

I took a ton of pictures of this guy. He was the guardian of the pumpkins. At least that's what I'm going to call him, because he was looming over them with his arms outstretched. 

I'll limit myself to just sharing a few pics of him. I'm sure you guys have seen these giant skeletons at night and noticed how their eyes change. I caught an especially sinister expression here!

So as you can see here, the pumpkins were lined up in rows. They went on and on. 

The fog machine was really rolling.

Here are some of my favorite carvings. I'm trying to think of some carving inspiration for the next few days when I'll be carving one to display where I live. We have a similar set-up in the downtown area but it's much smaller than this. I saw lots of different jack-o-lantern faces that might influence what I do. 

How about the eyes here? Someone did well not having them fall apart with just those centers left. He's kind of a Cheshire Cat. 

How impressive is this skull!? I'm always impressed when people carve in layers with a sort of translucent "skin" left. 

This pumpkin is turned horizontal. 

Love this one. The face looks like it is made of flames. 

This one may just be my favorite. So. Many. Cuts. Someone really had control of the knife. I'm getting carpal tunnel just looking at this. 

I like those lower teeth on the one on the right. Again, that's a lot of control. 

Mr. Oogie Boogie Man. 

Nosferatu - probably. 

This is probably my second favorite carving. So many cat carvings this year!

An owl:

Nice teeth.

Hello Kitty:

You may remember this art installation from last year. So here it is at a distance:

Skeletal pigeons lined the perimeter of this structure and the top of these ropes. They were painted with black light paint. 

Some of the houses around the park had some decorations up. There weren't as many as in years past, but the ones we saw were pretty impressive. Like this ghost on fire holding a human heart. As I type that, I'm thinking I need a bit of a backstory on this character. 

Skeleton reaper dude:

Beetlejuice Sandworm:

This front yard is awesome. Everything they do with the lighting and what I think is a homemade pumpkin creature. It's all so creative. See the red-eyed skull in the planter?

I bet his body is made from pipes.

Here's a good picture to end on, because he's waving goodbye. The bright orange lighting on these last two is so classic. 

Hope you guys enjoyed this year's photo show! I was pretty impressed with this year's pumpkin carvings. I'm actually more impressed now that I'm home looking these photos over. Some serious work went into some of those pumpkins. I wonder how long they took to carve. Maybe an hour? Some of you who do intricate carvings might be able to give me an estimate. 🎃