🎃Happy Halloween🎃

***🎃Happy Halloween🎃***

A much loved mini has come out for the day. A kit from TQC, tiny approx. 8 1/2" x 10 1/2"

Mo decided to dress up as a Couch Potato this year! Tho we will probably add his tiny witch's hat tomorrow for our walks. 

Mo has his munchies! He loves these pumpkin treats.

Due to high winds and chilly evenings, Mo has also been wearing his Fall sweater. I do love pompoms on a Pug.

Hope your Halloween is fun and maybe a little spooky!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

October Garden Peeping ahead of the Storm

Hi friends! October is rushing by, as all things so anticipated tend to do. Saturday was cool and crisp here, finally! And the sky over the beach was filled with dense flocks of tiny birds, plus skeins of geese and ducks. I so love seeing the seasons slowly begin to change.

A storm is headed our way however. We so often have storms near Halloween---The Perfect Storm of movie fame, Hurricane Sandy, and many others. edit: storm was a big fat Yawn, just a little rain overnight......

So let's enjoy the flowers and gardens, the dunes and pathways while we can. First , an iconic peek through the weathered grey fences, a last periwinkle in pretty bloom.

Roses, asters, and goldenrod abound. 

Garden rugosas.

I especially love asters, they fill the roadsides in Cape Cod in the fall. Usually pale blue or lavender; here they are white.

Last week Mo and I walked around and admired front steps and porches, bedecked for Halloween and Fall.

I'm quite envious of this pale robin's egg blue pumpkin!

This house had a lot of rather creepy black gauze on windows, doors, and railings. Hmmm.....

I love these strange lava? rocks set out in public areas, not sure what their function is. Over the years they have become miniature fairy landscapes, crevices filled with lush emerald alpine moss and this year, with minute shamrocks, hardly bigger than a glass pin head. [you may recall another had a housekey set out in it all summer, a mystery key.]

At the beach, dunes and grasses attract those flocks of migrating birds. Lots of food, shelter, and few predators so close to the ocean.

.........................................

More outings: Trader Joe's was cheap and festive.

I mentioned shopping there to Kel, as she is a TJ's fan also; I told her we got such great cheese. In response she sent me this ominous mystical page of spells:

And we stopped in Old Navy for fast refunds of mail order items. The store was neater than usual, do they read my blog and know what a mess I usually see when I go? [of course not!].

Not a single Fall-y item to be seen, all is pale and neutral, plus some yucky intestinal pink. I give them credit for having clothes light weight enough to actually wear in October and November, warm here, but still.

Last a photo is from a friend's garden. This lovely white flowered plant, a volunteer, has filled one of his deck pots all summer. It looks like a small hibiscus or hollyhock. He says it is a weed! I think it's a mallow, no idea where it came from though. The marsh? a marsh mallow? hahaha.

Mo is battened down in his new deep snuggle bed, keeping watch as the wind picks up. The back door flew open a while ago, not latched tightly---scared us both. 

I'm posting early in case the power goes out. I really hate this new phrase: ''bomb cyclone'', what the heck! Bomb? Cyclone? Do I need that anxiety. I think weather people love dire tidings and scary names. I'll be old fashioned and call this storm a nor'easter. Talk to you soon!

                                                      

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

October sunset behind and old gnarled pine:

Saving seeds, this is the rose campion, from same friend as marsh mallow.

On IG I saw dried goldenrod. I hope there's some left for me to harvest after this storm.

Autumn Creeps in

Hi everyone! Mo and I are waiting for the doggy spa van. Mo needs a manicure. He just hurled his toy at me, he knows something is up, his routine is changed.

I am so disappointed --the weather bug said we were due for some chilly days this week into the weekend. Instead it's glaringly brilliant sun and quite warm, verging on hot, 70s*. And just now as I placed my weekly grocery order, I discovered that there is NO Charmin and NO Bounty paper towels to be had. Deja vu all over again. What the heck?

Despite the summery weather I 've been Fall cleaning and adding some autumn touches to my house. You may notice things look a bit shabby, but not shabby chic. Between my ongoing health issues and Mo's national debt sized vet bills, my spruce up savings are pretty much gone. But I'll share anyway, ''keeping it real'', you know? I am not a grey and white '' Instagram influencer'' anyway, just sharing how I add seasonal touches as the year goes by. (notice new lamps were first on my list to get crossed off, sigh)

I love this Year in the Country quilt, pattern a gift from Penny in SA. It is an entire year but somehow speaks to me of fall into winter.

Close ups...

oldie!

new last year, Starry Eyed Jack.

My collection of autumn colored mixing bowls, chocolate brown, almost black, pumpkin and caramel. They need their fall wash up and to be resorted. I have two more stacks to wash, today's housekeeping plan.

I love nature finds and dried botanicals. The mini punks from Trader Joe's, c. 2019, dried great, as did some acorns I collected. 

These are tree pumpkins or branch pumpkins  HERE

These baby jacks, from 2020, not so much. They turned into zombie pumpkins! And one exploded in a discreet corner over the summer. Hilarious Fail. 

Nostalgia---the two throw pillows' fabrics and the quilt were found for me by my mom. I display them every year and think of her pleasure in seasonal touches.

The center crock below was hers too, always filled with hydrangeas. It came from Steamboat Springs Colorado, her idea of a cool souvenir. My dad brought home a 4" blue spruce seedling sprout, extracted from a Wendy's parking lot's flower bed, his idea of a souvenir. It grew tall in Illinois, then he moved it to the Cape, where it majestically grew to maybe thirty feet tall or more at the front of his yard where it hid his potato patch and mom's lavender garden from the street view. [curb appeal!] 

Outside the cottage, I'm noting this year that the mums are very outstanding and pretty. There mahogany ones are on our deck, 

And these perfectly pumpkin orange mums are at my front/ back? door with a small classic pumpkin.

Hope your week has been great, enjoy the weekend!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

harvest moon  or hunters moon last night. [to me the hunters moon has to be in November]

Geese, trying to form their V.

First red leaf.

This is for Kel, the 15 cent thread. The object in it was an old time-y wire needle threader. I use the spool as a keeper, because the wind blows the old aluminum threader away. The spool must have come from my dad's sewing tin.