Thursday, October 29, 2009

Fall Fun

I love fall. In Miami, there really aren't seasons like there are in the North. Don't get me wrong, October in Miami is when you really notice the version of fall they have. The humidity drops and becomes almost tolerable (at least compared to July) and the temperature in the morning is in the 70's instead of the 80's. Its a lovely preview of the dry season to come. But in the north, we get the changing leaves, the crisp (or soggy) bite to the air. And I've been loving it.

The sad part of fall here is the end of the Mushroom season in the Cascades. Last weekend Russell and I went out for our last trip to the high cascades for mushrooms. Why the last trip, well for one pickings were slim and the mushrooms that were there were a bit sad. Also this:


That's the first real snow fall in the Cascades, and at an elevation not dramatically higher than where we were. It has since snowed even more (i.e. ski parks are starting to hope for their opening days...) and snow and mushrooms don't go together. Despite the slim pickens we found a few edibles and some just plain fun mushrooms.



That last one is my favorite. Note the thermos for scale, it was huge, it weighed like 5 lbs. Sadly, when we keyed it it wasn't one we felt great eating. Some people eat them, but they can have a "laxative effect" on some people, and we just didn't feel like risking it. We'll do a little more mushrooming at lower elevations before it gets really cold, but then it's time to wait until spring.

October also means Halloween. Halloween is going to be ridiculous this year. Friday night we are headed to an HP Lovecraft play. Saturday, we are preparing for hundreds of trick or treaters. We live in a really family friendly neighborhood, with lots of kids, so halloween decorations are everywhere. To get into the spirit ourselves, we carved pumpkins last night. I carved a Penguin:


And Russell carved a really scary face thing. He's got big plans for it on Halloween, involving pyrotechnics. I'll show more when it happens.



Another pumpkin shot.


We've got two more pumpkins, so Saturday we'll probably carve two more Jack O' Lanterns too.

3 comments:

Abyss said...

The penguin pumpkin is great! Have a great Halloween!

Meredith said...

Thanks! You Too!

Loft Offcourse said...

some of us are STILL here. It just got windier. Not cooler, not less humid, just windier.