Dear Reader:

As Halloween approaches I always make sure I have lots of pumpkins…real and decorative…because following Halloween…the BOO’s have to go, the spiders, skeletons, black cats, witches, and even broomsticks….but the pleasing pumpkins decorate Thanksgiving now with corn stalks, apples, straw bales, wagons, and cornucopias. A one-for-two holiday decorative addition…Halloween and Thanksgiving!

A pumpkin is a very useful vegetable/fruit (on-going debate…botanists say fruit because it bears seeds and planters a vegetable for being less sweet than it fruity companions.)

As I mentioned earlier in a blog post….the low country is just now slowly displaying its fall colors…from Thanksgiving to Christmas it is at its fall foliage peak.

So yesterday I rode around several neighborhoods in town and then close proximity to me…taking photos of trees turning colors, bushes, plants, and porches with pumpkins still decorating the upcoming holiday.

* One house was definitely jumping ahead…with pumpkins on the front of the porch and Santa Claus on the other…now that IS pushing the Ho Ho Ho season! 🙂 Maybe this particular Santa really likes pumpkins???

Come with me and see some low country fall foliage….and pumpkins on porches….

The grandchildren’s maples are in full bloom

Morning glories are mixing all colors of pink and purple now

Popping up out of the ground to take one last look around….

So until tomorrow….

I think we can all agree with John Greenleaf Whittier…in his poem simply called “Pumpkin” …the best part of a pumpkin is found in pumpkin pie!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better

E’er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,

Brighter eyes never watched o’er its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Great News! Jake got his cast off his arm and pins out yesterday. Dino the Dinosaur went with him so he could get his Dr. Vickie’s sling off at the same time.

Jake had worn an old shirt to school yesterday so the class could tie-dye them…and put fringe on the shirts… the students who wanted to be Native-Americans wore…Jake did…his name “Speedy Shark.”

When Mandy first sent the photos out yesterday afternoon… a lot of us thought the doctor had to cut off his shirt…mystery solved! 🙂

Dino was really rough housing on the way to the doctor…but afterwards he just enjoyed watching television with Jake…each holding their arms like it was still in a cast or sling…it takes awhile to readjust. 🙂