Halloween and Vermont.

11-1-11 SHORT HILLS: Halloween on Garden Place, Brooklyn was the usual craziness. We sat on Val’s brownstone stoop from 5 PM to 6:30 and gave out 1500 tiny tootsie rolls—that’s not a typo. At 7 PM the downstairs neighbors took over and were just as busy. I was pressed into last minute pumpkin carving duty. For the most part the costumes were the traditional heroes and villains from movies, nursery rhymes and TV. There was a family, a school, of fish and SCUBA divers, a refrigerator, cars, Roman litter bearers, Snookis and angry birds. Also a pair of Walk, Don’t Walk signs, and a black-clothed pogo-sticker hopping down the street with ‘Stock Market’ on the T-shirt. The block was in its usual eerie, scary incarnation with pumpkins, spiders, webs, skeletons, ghosts, witches observing.

Today I did more clean-up, pruning of storm damage and have accumulated a sizable pile on the street. The pool is filled with wood, huge maple and elm branches. Frank’s Tree was here to assess the damage and add us to the clean-up list.

11-2-11 VERMONT: Sam, Chloe and I came up today to close up the garden beds and generally winterize. Winterization cannot proceed with snow on the ground which is what we found, paradoxically as that may seem. Hopefully some melting we let us proceed. Brady the horse has returned home for the winter. The ponds are full and draining. Late monkshood is still in bloom. We did get a nice sunset.


The work of the master carver entilted 'Ambivalence' elicited several comments.

Sunset as advertised.

Berry Quiz-Part II.

1. Easy for iMac users.

2. A low-growing evergreen.

Answers: 1. Apple [duh], 2. Cotoneaster.