Carving the Pumpkin

It was a good weather day today, with warm temperatures in the mid-50's and no rain.  We carried our large pumpkin out to the picnic table in the pasture, and the carving began!  Kaila's job was to pull out all the pumpkins seeds so they could be roasted and eaten later.

Here is the process as it unfolded.  Even Nala the Dog was out there, cheering us on!

The Search for the Perfect Pumpkin

Well, today the search was on for the perfect Halloween pumpkin, with just three days until the big day!
Kaila and I always take this challenge seriously, and we spent much of the morning looking at literally hundreds of pumpkins--big ones, small ones, white ones, orange ones, and ones that weighed over 100 pounds! With her little shopping cart, Kai picked a great pumpkin that had plenty of room to carve a big, smiling face on it.

Here she is with her prized gourd, and we even had a few minutes to play in the corn stalks before getting our pumpkin in the car.  She named it "The Pouting Pumpkin".

A Saturday Morning in Snohomish

We took a break from household chores this morning and escaped to downtown Snohomish.  The shops are always work cruising through, and we saw quite a few new businesses that had sprung up since our last visit.

Here's a shot of stores on main street, and a shot of the Snohomish River.

The Hungry Pelican

We stumbled upon a new restaurant and gift shop in downtown historic Snohomish this morning, and it's called the Hungry Pelican.  The lunch was delicious, with artisan bread featuring a veggie sandwich and a turkey club on panini. The iced tea was brewed hot and 'poured over' a filter into an iced tea glass, then chilled with ice.

It was a fun place to try for lunch, and we'll go back again.

Beautiful Pumpkin Carving Art

One of my employees at work is a talented graphic artist, and he recently shared some photos of his current  pumpkin carvings. They are some of the best and most detailed I've ever seen.

My favorite is Stewie, the evil baby from the animated TV series, "Family Guy", and of course there is a pumpkin for all of the Seahawks fans!  The last one is quietly elegant in its dragon repose.  It's hard to believe these are real pumpkins.

Acorns

We found a lovely old stand of Oregon White Oak trees in Bothell recently, and they are the only thing left on a lot that has been razed for the new Bothell Landing development coming in 2013. The ground was literally covered with  these lovely tiny green acorns.  I gathered up a bag of them and brought them home for some Autumn decorating.

It's Apple Day!

We finally picked all of the Liberty apples last weekend, and we filled an entire box!  These are the prettiest apples I've seen, and they are an old variety that is resistant to pests.  Each apple is perfectly shaped and flawless.

We peeled about 12 cups of apples, enough to make a large 10 inch apple pie in my Yellowware pie plate, with enough apples left over for a large batch of brown sugar applesauce. The kitchen was buzzing  with activity and fragrant smells.