Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #223 – Flights of Fancy

Halloween can send one on all types of flights of fancy. I am not really one for scary things though, like reading horror stories or watching scary films. I like to feel relaxed when I read, not scared. Halloween, with those dark days and the start of November, the darkest of months, everything wet and decaying – and you can understand why the Celts would want to make a festival. Here is the time they believed the netherworld came close to the surface. When the dead could come and visit. I can imagine them telling stories around the camp fire, scaring the “bejasus” (An Irish expression) out of each other.

Pumpkin

Everything is just a little bit scary at this time of year. I will be staying inside, and keeping warm. Happy Halloween!

A

Six on Saturday – 16th October 2021

Mid October and nearly Halloween. Below my squash and pumpkin harvest this year.

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  Squash and Pumpkin

The continuing relatively mild weather means that late flowering cosmos are still providing some good colour.

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  Cosmos

Meanwhile the sweet chestnuts are getting ripe.

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  Sweet chestnut

Once again the choke berry leaves are putting on a wonderful autumn display.

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  Chokeberry leaves

Some lovely rosehips on the dog rose.

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  Rosehips

And will this be (sorry somewhat blurred) the final bumblebee this year?

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  Common carder bee

Thanks to The Propagator for hosting Six on Saturday.

Six on Saturday – Happy Halloween

Of course it being Halloween I have to start with the pumpkins this week. Not home grown this year, but kids made good job with their carvings all the same.

There is also a full moon tonight. Not the best of photos, but this is it through the trees.

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  Perfect Halloween full moon

We had some gales earlier with Storm Aiden, leaving most of the remaining leaves on the ground.

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  wet leaves

However, I did manage to get a photo of the dogwood yesterday before the storm arrived (it is pretty much stripped bare now).

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  Dogwood

And the field maple, which always goes a lovely yellow shade too.

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  Maple

We have also started feeding the birds again too. Here a blue tit, coal tit and great tit all sharing.

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  Busy bird feeder

So wishing you all a very Happy All Hallows Eve. And special thanks to The Propagator for hosting six on Saturday.

Six on Saturday

We have had a couple of frosts the last two night, and there is a noticeable drop in temperatures even during the day.

1. With Halloween just around the corner it was time to harvest the pumpkins and squash and do some carving. The big one took up half the wheelbarrow!

Pumpkin harvest

Pumpkin

Pumpkin

Pumpkin harvest

 

2. Despite the fact that most of the flowers are gone I saw a common carder bumblebee today and it was still collecting pollen, suggesting it was still feeding young – maybe it was just an optimistic bee.

Common carder

Common carder

3. In the vegetable garden we are getting a couple of romanesco maturing.

Romanesco

4. A poor frosted cosmos.

Frosted cosmos

5. I love these big leaves of the mulberry tree.

Mulberry leaf

6. So few apples this year but there are a few bramblys on a potted tree that will have to be planted out in the next couple of months.

Brambly apple

 

Thank you to The Propagator for hosting – six on Saturday

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween

Following on from the post of whole pumpkins, here are the carved ghoulish faces of yesterday’s work. Wishing you all a happy and safe Halloween.

Gratitude

Gratitude that we managed to grow two, decent sized pumpkins this year, so that the children had one each to carve! And thankful that my son was generous enough to allow his younger sister to hog the large of the two!

Oiche Samhain

In Ireland, tonight is called Oiche Samhain, or night of Samhain. The Celtic Festival of Samhain, marks the end of the old year and beginning of the new year. It also marked the end of the harvest and the start of the dark half of the year.

There is the idea that being a time of transition the boundaries between the underworld and the human world are not secure and so all kinds of eerie souls, spirits, ghosts and fairies can move freely in the human world, many of whom would be up to no good!

There are many traditions associated with the desire to ward off these unwanted spirits or indeed to welcome your own deceased kin. Bonfires would be lit and people would wear masks to confuse the spirits. One nice story I heard during the week was that people in one area would leave a basin of water and a towel by the doorway so that passing spirits could wash!