Are You Crabby?

 I am crabby over here! That's right, crabby! 

It's because I'm a member of P.L.A.N.T. It's a super-secret organization. Oh, you've heard of it? People Looking Around Nature - Trespassers.

As a member of P.L.A.N.T., I have trained long and hard to be able to sneak into off-limits nature garden areas. I carry specialized equipment: An old towel, a baggie, and a baseball cap. My weapon of choice: A rosary.

The old towel is to lay atop walls, so that I can avoid the bird poopie that is always on them. The baggie is for pretty things I find on the ground, and the cap is a practical disguise. The rosary speaks for its beautiful self.  

These "walls" I speak of -- just so you know: They are two or so feet high. Sadly, my knees are shot, and I can't just step over a wall, or even onto it. No, I have to sit on it, then ow-ow-ow pick my legs up and place them on the other side, while sniveling and swiveling. I told my husband that I travel like a turtle travels: Very slowly, and along curbs until there is a low place. I can't even step up onto a normal curb. It's very irritating. I think it may be time for a cane. "GROWING OLD AIN'T FER SISSIES."

I just had to go see the progress of the crab apples in the still-closed-due-to-COVID park here. Yes, the college and all of its public parts are still closed, because goodness knows fresh air outdoors in the desert with the wind blowing across hundreds of miles of unoccupied land is very, very likely to cause illness. SARCASM!

My mind is on those crabapples. My mind has been on crabapples since I first saw them at four years old. I love them, and I love pumpkins and dried gourds and dried corn. Too bad there's not a way to track how much time I have spent with visions of them in my head. I have a magpie mind, and glad of it!

I can't recall who it was, Dickens or Hawthorne?, but they wrote of a wonderful Christmas hot punch, with "brown crabs" [crabapples] bobbing in it. I am determined to get a few ripe ones and have them in a hot cider this year!

I feel so badly for those whose minds can't find happiness in nature, in wholesome activities, and in simple things. I was so very blessed to never have a wish for drugs or bad things. 

Evidently, though, I have a wish to trespass into public gardens. I can justify it up and down, but it's possibly still naughty. So, I just had to sneak in and see the progress of the crabapples. Did any "take," after the beautiful blooms? If so, were they beginning to turn red? 

They are indeed many crabapples on the trees!

Two crabapples side by side

They are beautiful!

It was so fun to be beneath the canopy looking at them!

I got a few from the ground, but I am seriously contemplating going back when they are ripe, and getting a jar of the windfalls.

So many little crabapples ripening!

I think I might make a crabapple cordial. I am typically a teetotaler. I did make blackberry cordial in years past, for gifts and also to keep (as a prepper) as a medicinal (Like in Anne of Green Gables). When we moved off Whidbey Island, I gave that last bottle away, though. So, I have no cordials in the house at this time. 

Early windfall crab apples

On August 1st, I "jump" the season and start decorating for autumn! I start with apples and apple decor and buffalo checks and so on, and then September 1st the pumpkins start muscling in! By October 1st it is FHM. Full Hallowe'en Mode. 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Do any of you make cordials or wines? And when do you start with your autumn decor?

Rare Hallowe'en Blue Moon Approaches

For the first time since 1944, a full moon visible to the entire world will happen on Hallowe'en night. 

A "blue moon" is the second full moon within a month. Thus the saying, "Once in a blue moon," as that's not a common occurrence. But a full moon visible the world over, instead of just certain sections, that falls on Hallowe'en is much rarer.

I have to wonder about those who were gazing up at the 1944 full moon, back when WWII raged and Hallowe'en was so very different.

Full moons and Hallowe'en bring homemade popcorn balls to mind. I am old enough to remember homemade treats handed out at Hallowe'en. One neighbor made fantastic popcorn balls, flavored with vanilla and studded with cocktail peanuts still wearing their red skins, now coated with hardened sugar syrup. 

Full moons feature prominently on antique and vintage Hallowe'en postcards. Here is one, below.

 

    Kind regards,

    Olde Dame Holly Rose

Scary Spider Advertising Card from Yesteryear

Spider webs are made from spider silk, and are very strong. Old lore says that spider webs laid over a cut can stop the bleeding, and heal the wound, preventing infection.

When I was taking Anatomy and Physiology, I eventually noticed that the vast majority of important and active biological compounds seemed to be proteins. So it isn't surprising that spider silk, a protein, is very biologically active. It is also full of Vitamin K, which is used to help stop bleeding and to heal cuts.

Spider webs used for healing is very, very old lore, dating perhaps to the time of Christ. Later, it is even mentioned in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, by the unfortunate weaver, "Nick Bottom." I wonder if Shakespeare meant for one weaver to invoke another.

Here is a turn of the century trading card featuring a jolly giant spider who has easily trapped a tiger with her silk. Spiders were not always as feared as they seem to be today: Once, they were considered quite lucky, and the Germans (of course it's the Germans) even have a Christmas folktale starring a sweet spider who decorates a tree for the Christ Child with her silk. I believe the song "The Little Drummer Boy" to have borrowed the idea of someone (or something, in the case of the spider) with no worldly goods, honoring the birth of Jesus with a humble and heartfelt gesture within their ability to give.

Thank'ee for dropping by.

    Kind regards,

    Olde Dame Holly Rose

Hallowe'en Is Around the Corner

I can't believe how close Hallowe'en is now. My very favorite time of the year!

Last Hallowe'en, B.C.19 (Before COVID-19), I was sitting in my vintage metal porch chair, near my front door, waiting for trick-or-treaters to arrive. The porch light was on, and so were all my Hallowe'en light strings.

A man came quickly through my gate into the courtyard, and up to the front door. When he got to the door, I said, "Happy Hallowe'en." Did he ever jump! I was in plain sight, but I had a cloak and witch's hat on. Perhaps he thought I was one of those "porch sitter" decorations.

It turned out he was running for mayor. I told him a career politician in my courtyard was the scariest thing I would see that night. He was not amused. 

Here is a little old-time poem about Hallowe'en. May your preparations for this Hallowed Eve be going smoothly!

Lore: The Curfew Bell...

We think of a curfew as a time to retire; as teens long ago, many had parental "curfews" meant to keep them safe and back in their homes, with curfews on school nights much earlier than those on the weekend or in summer. But the curfew bell does double duty, for the world of the living and the world of the unseen...

In olden times, towns and cities often had curfews set by the authorities. The "curfew bell" would ring loud and plain around 8 p.m., warning townspeople to get inside and prepare for bed. Townspeople hurried home, not wanting to be fined or jailed for being out after the last peal of the bell. Shutters, which were working protections at the time, unlike their decorative cousins of today, were hung or unfolded, and locked. Doors were locked as well, and many times so were gates. Fires were banked for the night, and children were put abed. Thus secured, adults sat by the still-warm stove and whiled the rest of the evening away until bedtime.

The curfew bell was a signal that the day was over -- to us in the realm of the living and the mundane. But to the denizens of "the other side," and the magical folk, the curfew bell was a glad sound, indicating they could now go abroad in the night, flitting and frisking until morning. As the last peal of the bell faded away, fairies and ghosts sashayed into the empty streets, until their own curfew sounded -- the first cock crow.

I love folklore, and this time of year, I enjoy scaring myself a bit with the less-upsetting lore. Do you know any low-octane spooky lore?

    Kind regards,

    Olde Dame Holly Rose

Free Printable Hallowe'en Fun Food Labels

Spooky cards for fun foods!

 

Here is a redo of a free printable I offered years ago on a different blog. I hope that we are able to have some sort of safe Hallowe'en get-togethers despite COVID-19. Perhaps families who live together could have a little party, or offices where everyone works together could have a cute lunch.

Most of these labels are designed to be able to stand for more than one type of food or drink, although Jellied Puffer Fish is rather specific to Swedish Fish. Swamp Scum, for example, could be guacomole, Lime Sherbet Island Punch, or baby-leaf salad. Toad Legs can be wings or celery sticks or something really scary, such as a fish stick. Zombie Eyeballs could be olives, melon balls, really anything remotely round. Gargoyle Gulp can be any punch or drink. Wands & Snitches can be pretzel sticks and peanuts or M&Ms. And so on, and so forth.

Hallowe'en is one of my absolutely favorite holidays, mainly because it refuses to be tamed. It is a very old, very earthy fest, full of mysticism. I stay up all night on most holidays, and most especially on Hallowe'en. I can almost remember what it felt like to be young, on All Hallow's Eve.

But of course, I'm ancient now. So ancient, that I do not wish to give up the spelling of Hallowe'en as I was taught it, with the apostrophe, to remind us it was a hallowed evening. I also miss using the ligature "æ" in many Latin words, such as æsthetic. Precision in scholarship was still important, during my early education. Later, it was ruined by the "modern" 1970s, but luckily I had a firm foundation by then.

As always, use the LINK to save the printable. If you save the picture, it will not print nicely, due to Google shrinking images in websites and limiting their width, but allowing them to be their original size when saved in Google Drive.

Link: Click HERE for the full-sized printable.

    Kind regards,

    Olde Dame Holly Rose

The Rise of the Unusual Pumpkin

I can remember in the late 1960s and until perhaps 1995, when the main pumpkin for sale at Hallowe'en was the "Howden Pumpkin," the typical bright orange, sturdy pumpkin developed specifically to be carved into Jack O'Lanterns. There were pie pumpkins in with the produce in grocery stores, but the big piles and bins of pumpkins were Howdens, with some Connecticut Field pumpkins dating to before  Colonial times still being grown. 

 

Later, what I call "boutique" pumpkins began to make their appearances. First there were the white pumpkins, developed here in the U.S., and then many old European standbys, such as Rouge Vif D'Etampes, commonly called the "Cinderella" pumpkin. I can remember in the early 1970s seeing blue pumpkins -- Queensland Blue -- being offered at Bechnel Farms citrus groves near New Orleans, but few takers. I thought them dreadful, since the idea of a smooth, typical Howden pumpkin was firmly cemented in my mind. "Pumpkins should be round, or tallish, and orange," thought my child's mind. What I would give to have those blue pumpkins now, at an affordable price! They were developed in Australia way back in the 1930s. I wonder how the Becnels came to grow them.

Now, warty pumpkins, bi-colored pumpkins, and flat pumpkins are popular. The white pumpkins have been improved, with many appearing an impossible white. Martha Stewart has done much to popularize the strange pumpkins and the unusual pumpkins and winter squash. They almost always grace the pages of her magazine and website. (Ah, magazines. I think soon they will almost cease to be, other than in digital form.)

I have grown pumpkins since I graduated college many a year ago, almost always choosing to grow Rouge Vif D'Etampes. However, I think a seed of the newly popular "Long Island Cheese Pumpkin" must have been in the package, and that is what I recently grew. I am very happy with it! It is actually kin to the butternut squash, which means it will make fantastic "pumpkin" pie, just as butternuts do. It has a pale, tannish color, with just a hint of orange.

Do any readers here grow unusual pumpkins?

Pumpkin-Shrinking Fever!

 Maybe it's a reaction to the COVID shutdown and sadness, but suddenly the crafting/make-do/primitive world has gone crazy for shrinking down pumpkins in the oven, and turning them into hard decorations that evidently will last at least a year!

There is a huge amount of experimenting going on, and even while you're reading this, thousands of pumpkins all across the U.S. are being baked at this moment. All I can say is, before you even start, go get one of those fantastic fried Pumpkin Creme Pies from McDonalds, because if you don't, the smell of baking pumpkin - and none to eat - will drive you to distraction.

The fried pies are great. Better than my pumpkin pie, and it's delectable.

The consensus so far: Use small pumpkins. Use orange ones. Be sure to bake them on a cookie sheet/shallow baking pan. Jack O'Lantern pumpkins seem to do better than pie pumpkins, according to SOME. Don't undercook, and don't overcook!

They are cooked like Lowrider Pumpkins: Low and slow. 

They harden as they cool. Some people are cutting faces into them (don't cut out a nose, because it weakens that side of the pumpkin too much and you get a crack or a collapse), but some are just cutting two small slits in the bottom of whole pumpkins and making no face. Some haven't even cut the slits in.

Here's a screenshot of some instructions for your very own "shrunken" pumpkin:

 

    Kind regards,

    Olde Dame Holly Rose

Free Witch's Boot Pattern

Halloo Prim Friends. Today we have a free "Witch's Boot" design I created many and many a moon ago. It can be used as a pattern for sewing, or for painting on a rustic sign, perhaps. I used to make these from muslin, stuff them very hard with cotton, and then paint with acrylics, sand, and grubby them up. Sometimes I would leave the top open, and stick drieds and artificial bittersweet down into the boot, like a vase.

 

Click HERE to get the pattern.

Crafts are seeing quite a resurgence due to COVID-19. And I think that can only be a good thing! 

This design should print out on a piece of letter-sized paper. You can always drop by an Office Depot or Staples and get them to print it off there, too, especially if you want to enlarge or reduce it. Just put it on a thumb drive and take it with you to the store. I do believe you can do it all online now, too! Even have it printed off at Walmart!

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you enjoy!

Remember, click the LINK above to download. The image is just for reference -- it will not print out correctly.

    Kind regards,

    Olde Dame Hollyhock