HALLOW'S EVE is soon upon us and ghoulish scenes mingling with images of autumn have crept into our West Coast lives.
This is the season of fields sprouting pumpkins and pumpkin paths. The orange melons rest like bloated balloons on haystacks and overflow the huge boxes that house them at stores where they are sold.
A type of squash that seems like a vegetable but isn't, the fruit spills out onto the streets and into our homes. As a child I loved the fun of carving pumpkins and eating the delicious salted seeds my mom roasted in the oven as a treat.
Halloween has grown like pumpkins in popularity perhaps because it gives people a reason to get creative. There is a range of costumes to check out, from sweet to sinister, at my earlier post
here. A Halloween event would not be complete without characters like the Grim Reaper, a
harvester of souls.
Fascination with faux danger and hints at our demise are fostered early. The Grim Reaper's skeletal hand waved a realistic scythe at kid's on a ride at the local garden centre recently.
A gigantic spider also lurked on the train with toddlers inside. Since humans seem to innately fear spiders, lookalikes of the creepy creatures appear in odd places this time of year.
I sometimes wonder ... why do we fabricate frightening images when there is plenty of real horror to see in the world? Homes that are normally cheery like this one at Crescent Beach ...
get into the Halloween spirit with decorations that are comically eerie.
Many people have at least one grouchy hollowed out pumpkin with a candle inside called
Jack-O-Lantern sitting on their doorstep.
Some lawns are littered with skeletons ...
and headstones.
It is not uncommon to see bats, witches and goblins swaying on tree branches.
Someone is peering out the window of this home. Is he crying for help to get out or waiting to pounce on someone who goes in?
This leggy spider draped over the mailbox seemed to wink as I walked by.
A real spider looking for warmth dangled outside my own window.
A small chill crawled up my spine when the flash went off on my camera and transformed the spider into a fuzzy ghost in front of my eyes.
Life seems to hang on a delicate string sometimes. As I conclude this post my thoughts are with the people that were shaken on Saturday by a
7.7 earthquake in Haida Gwaii in the northwest coast of BC as well the people hurt by a hurricane now threatening the east coast.
As children plan to go
trick-or-treating on Wednesday night, it is not the little ghosts but a monster storm named Sandy that is howling through towns giving people much more than a fantasy fright.
To explore sights from around the globe, link to
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Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms
See more BC scenes at
Penelope Puddlisms: BC Life Is A Whale Of A Ride.
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