PROCESSION

 

Citygarden, our downtown sculpture park, usually adds pumpkins to the art objects at this time of year. I swung by yesterday and didn’t find anything so I pulled this out of the archives. Fun with f stops.                  

SKELETON

 

When I was of trick-or-treating age, ca. 1959-1962, it was just about sugar. No store-bought costumes, not even masks. We would wear crummy old clothes and color our faces with sidewalk chalk. And no plastic baskets, Pillow cases were more efficient. We would ring doorbell after doorbell in our Queens street of six-story, between the wars apartment buildings. No front door security ring-ins then. We made out pretty well.

Of course, it’s all different now. I don’t know what small children make of all these images of death and dismemberment, but I suspect they are completely desensitized. This was the scene at a Saturday farmers market a town or two over from the suburb where we live.          

Transition

It finally feels like summer is really over here. It was a long one. Every autumn Citygarden covers its long stone wall with a row of pumpkins. The color is striking if you get the light right.             

Orange and Pink

The Arch 50th anniversary celebration was a bust. There was a stage with rotating entertainment, some better than others. A bit of low-end children's activities and a number of food booths lacking for business with the modest turnout. And that's it. There were fireworks later but after Madeleine's bedtime.

So the family went down the street to Citygarden, which everyone enjoys. The long wall is always lined with pumpkins at this time  of year. Quite a contrast with the pink in Big Suit. Madeleine had some fun with the autumn leaves, more about which tomorrow.

Pumpkins Need Police Protection

I turned around after I took yesterday's photo and got this one. The policemen in the background may have been left over from the gun rally, which happened earlier the same day. 

The pumpkins were gone when I drove by yesterday.                    

Vanishing Point

This it the kind of thing they tell you in all those photography tips emails you can subscribe to - draw the eye down a line toward a vanishing point. Works well with pumpkins on a wall in Citygarden. 

There were probably plenty of pumpkins carved, smashed or hurled around The Lou last night. Who knows, some people might have listened to Smashing Pumpkins tunes. We spent the evening at our daughter's house in the city where they usually get lots of trick-or-treaters. But it was cold and almost no one came by.                 

We haven't had Madeleine for a while. We haven't had pumpkins in forever.

Madeleine's other grandparents are up here from Houston for her baptism today. We all went out to Eckert's Farm yesterday, where they have pick-yourself apples and pumpkins at this time of year. Madeleine, happy child that she is, enjoyed just crawling around the hundred-pounders out front.                   

Pick-Your-Own

Every year my husband and I usually go to Eckert's Orchards in Illinois at least once. They have pick-your-own pumpkins in October, which is when we always go. But they also have other fruit and Christmas trees seasonally, so there are home-grown goodies available from May through December. They claim to be the biggest pick-your-own orchard operation in the United States.

These photos were both actually taken in the central area off of the parking lot, where those who don't care for the dusty ride out to the field on a tractor-pulled wagon may still get their pumpkins. My actual photos of the fields (smallish orange blobs in a sea of green) didn't look as good. So much for authenticity.