How to be a Witch for Halloween

Happy Halloween! Amazing, isn’t it? How quickly October flew by… This month saw cold, windy days and hot, dry days and even a little bit of rainy, cold, foggy days! (It’s rare to have a cold October in this part of California- normally it’s blisteringly hot and dry and extremely incendiary this time of year around here…)

How to be a Witch for Halloween- hmmm. I’ve dressed up for Halloween as either a Black Witch, a Black Pirate, or a Black Vampire for many, many years, so this year I wanted something a little more…lighthearted:

I like it so much, I may just wear this outfit around for the rest of the year! Mustard tights from Target, Black old-timey heels and burgundy sweater from Khol’s, green long sleeve perfect tee and stripey skirt from Old Navy. The Tree Skirt is my own creation from years back (which I love and wear several times a week this time of year!)

Here’s Tasha’s costume:

She’s going as “a kitty napping in the sunlight”. Which is what she dresses up as every year, but hey- it works, so why change it momma?

Now, I don’t want to freak anyone out- but there has been an actual Faerie sighting recently…

Want to see? I think I captured her on film:

She has just flown in for the Yule season (which, I’m told, is twice as long in Faerie-Land as it is here in the mundane world. Hmm…) and is expecting her luggage any day now.

Luggage?!

And here I thought that creepy feeling on the back of my neck was from watching too much Ghost Hunters…I’ve got a bad feeling about this! Just how much Luggage can one Faerie have?

Time trippin'

     We went to Old Town again this summer. This time I bought some terra cotta pots, but ended up taking pictures of this...

The architecture of days gone by fascinates me. What materials were available to the builders? Why did they choose those colours? How did they build those chimneys?

Love that chimney!

I also got some pictures of their new gardens depicting the plants, vegetable, and herbs that you would have found when the site was first occupied. 

There are roses in there! I love that they considered roses a necessity to life, along with the squash and carrots. The park had three areas planted out, this next one is behind the Mccoy House proper:

That's a pomegranate tree in the back against the fence. Such a surprise to find one in a public garden!

The Mccoy House is a  funny little museum- the front half is a house decorated in period style (the frieze is to die for gorgeous!) and the back half is a life-size diorama filled with a timeline of the area, blown-up black-and-white pictures of people, a fully planked out general-store-in-a-ship's hold with requisite shopkeep (creepy), a saloon with a bar and saloon keeper (creepier) and a post office, complete with stagecoach times and waiting area, also with creepy attendant. This would be a fun experience around Halloween, I can tell already!

All turkey, all the time...

While goblins and witches traipsed past our house (where, or where have all the trick-or-treaters gone?), this was peering at them from the fence:

we brought them inside before they could get too chilled from the icy shoulders of the costumed revelers streaming past to the fair up the street.



Nowadays, parents seem to take their kids to an organized function, rather than expose their kiddlings to the vagarities of society around here. Sigh. It makes for a rather lonely Halloween. We didn't even have one single pumpkin casuality in the neighborhood that I can see. Which, I suppose, is rather a good thing for the pumpkins...

And so, on to November! Already we have made turkey chili, and asian turkey meatballs are tucked away into the freezer for sanity-saving-non-thanksgiving-flavors later in the month. But around here, November is All-Turkey-All-The-Time month. This is the month I get to go all out, and experiment with recipes to my little heart's content! Stuffing vs. dressing, homemade green bean casserole, sweet potato biscuits, gravies galore, and cranberry sauces-chutney-relish-and jellies. Yum. Bring it on, I say. Bring it ON!