Happy Halloween!

I had planned to take some photos for Halloween -- there are many spooky old buildings and shots to be had along nearby Crantock Road -- but I didn't get around to it. I love Halloween although since we live in a somewhat isolated locale we don't do much for it anymore. When I was a kid and lived in a suburb filled with other kids I used to decorate the yard with ghosts and carved pumpkins. We had a garden with trees in the front yard that lights from the house could not penetrate, so that the pumpkins set on stands looked like they were floating in the darkness. In addition to decorating and pumpkin carving I loved ghost stories. A local AM station had wonderful ghost stories that they played hourly. To this day I still re-read Ghosts of the Carolinas and This Haunted Land by Nancy and Bruce Roberts, both compilations of short stories. "The Demon of Wizard Clip", "The Talking Corpse" (set in Old Salem Tavern), and "The Surrency Ghost" are among my favorites. There's something about those stories that really captures the history and essence of the Southeast and North Carolina. In the garden I am often reminded of this passage from "Room for One More": "It was dusk and for a few minutes there was that intense light in which everything takes on a glow all its own. The fragile, spider-like cleome flowers in front of the dark gray unpainted little shacks were a vibrant pink. The cotton fields could not have looked more green."

Currently it's cold and raining, too gloomy even for Halloween! These days we decorate for fall mostly in black and gold

Texas Sunflowers

pumpkin orange

leaves of rugosa rose

Tommy the cat

hints of ghostly white

Dog Fennel

Crinum 'Royal White'

Rose 'Blush Noisette'

with dashes of blood red thrown in, and let the spiders decorate the garden with webs.

rugosa hip

Rosa arkansana

American Holly

Black Highbush Blueberry

Granted these pictures are not at all spooky but Happy Halloween anyway!