A few ghoulish facts to sink your fangs into:

Please contact your partner as soon as possible to swap addresses, iron out the details of your swap, and any extra info you feel is important(or frightening).
Please have your packages on their broomsticks and ready to fly by the 16th of October.
Since the swap is both IH & IE together, you need only send one Bubble Envelope or Package to your partner with all your pumpkin, squash and orange and black goodies inside. :)
And, please remember to send with a delivery confirmation.

Here is your haunting list of scary swap buddies:

booberry85/Becky and Sunnyk/Donna
barefootgardner12 and ejmoore510/Joan
dirtdiggin/Toni and bonechickchris/Christy

Have a horrifically happy swap!! Can't wait to hear all of the gruesome swap details :)

Donna and Becky

I thought the poem was a little to long to post here!

Today I went to Tim's Pumpkin Patch! It's about 5 miles from my house. They've really built it up from what it was 8 years ago when I first learned about it. It's tremendously fun to watch tiny three year olds trying to carry or roll giant pumpkins that are bigger than them out of the field! Always insisting to their parents, "No, Mommy, I can carry it." They do have wheel barrels for you to carry the pumpkins. I recommend the wheel barrel! So I bought my 3 pumpkins, not the biggest but not the smallest. I also picked up two butternut squash & 1 ambercup squash. My grand total $10! After that I visited the farm animals, most are friendly & very used to people. They also have a gift & bakery shop of all things pumpkin & Halloween. Oh I should also mention, if you're not thrilled to go in a field of pumpkins & pick your own, they do have some right in front already picked.

So when trying to find the perfect pumpkin(s) for Halloween, I strongly recommend going to your local pumpkin patch or farmers market. It's fun, cheap & easy, much better than the Grocery store or WalMart!

I'm off to make some chocolate chip pumpkin bread!

Joan

Glad you liked the puzzle Toni. I like that site for doing puzzles.

Thanks for posting that ! I love Pumpkins and October and Apples and leaves and Fall ......

I love when it cools down and the colors turn to gold, rich orange reds and rich brown tones. Fall is so wonderful...and so much excitement with harvest....Love the harvest!!!!!

It also brings on the hucks...fall mushrooms and SALMON!!!!!!!!!!! It's fishin time too lol. I'm a fishin brat lol (raised by a commercial fisherman and he had no boys lol). Gotta fill the freezer this season...and fishin is upon us!!!!!!

This looks like the lake I live near. We're not quite at peak color yet. I know they are at peak color north of here.

There is a town at the end(well technically I think it is the beginning but for me it is the end LOL) of the Mohawk Trail that has an old building that they turned into a Mushroomery(is that a word) I was going to go see if they did tours last time I was there(shoot, about 9 years ago)but never got around to it. I am trying to get back there sometime soon, but never seem to have the time for more than a day trip half way up the trail :(

I heard from my old Italian great grandma, she used to cook the mushrooms in water with a silver coin. If the coin tarnished, it meant they were poisoness. She would pick mushroom wild. I dont think I could do that! She would also eat dandelions too that grew outside!

I've heard dandelion greens are suppose to be good before they flower. After that they turn bitter. Haven't tried them yet though.

We actually have locations around here where mushroom buyers set up and buy from mushroom pickers in the woods. It's kind of strange, but again, you can't mistake a chanterelle.

We saw chanterelles at our local gormet store, a week or so after we found our first batch...and all chanterelles are wild harvested cause they can't be cultivated very well, if at all, domestically. No home grown lol.

Toni

In my box was:
Yummy Chocolate candy (almost gone already)
Assorted gummy body parts
2 Beautiful Harvest themed towels
a Cute little scarecrow magnet
a coffin
a pumpkin carving kit (that I bet my hubby ends up snatching)
a wonderful pumpkin bag
and cute little pumpkin napkins

then there were seeds:
Eggplant 'Casper'
Eggplant 'Cannibal Tomato' (cant wait to try these)Tell them the story Becky, it is awesome!!
Tomato 'Bloody Butcher' Oooo Spooky
Tomato 'Ernies Plump' So cool, and on my wish list
Pumpkin 'Casper'
Pumpkin 'Dill's Atlantic'
Pumpkin 'Amish Pie' Mmmm I love pie
Pumpkin 'Baby Boo'
Pumpkin 'Long Island Cheese'
Pumpkin 'Jarrahdale'(sp)
Pumpkin 'Big Moon' Becky you are going to laugh when you see your goodies
Pumpkin 'Thai Kang Kob' Sounds so cool...cant wait to research them and grow them :)
Squash 'Tromboncino' On my wish list yay!!
Nasturtium 'Jewel Mix' another one off my wish list!!

Hope I didn't forget anything.

I love October :)

Thank You so much for all of the wonderful stuff!!!

I am going to try my best to get your package out by Monday afternoon Tuesday morning at the latest.

I grew Bloody Butchers this year. This year my tomatoes were hard hit with Early Blight. I've had to rip out most of my tomato plants but those Bloody Butchers are still producing! The Casper eggplants I grew this year too. They did well for me.

Now for the Cannibal Tomato! They are actually an eggplant. The story goes that cannibals used to make a sauce with these to serve with their "meal." They are suppose to be hardy & easy to grow. I'm going to try them next year.

I will definitely have the package out by Wednesday afternoon!

I will e-mail you your DC# :)

Donna

Donna

Love and Prayers, Christy

Joan

Christy, I didn't get your email. Could you resend it?

Below is a link to the "real" story.

Toni

our doggies and their strange habbits lol. Is it instinct or learned behavior?? LOL

Toni

That's too funny about the grass. I guess its literally his turf! How's Luke doing? One quirk, Buca, the girl, has is she won't walk on wet grass! She'll walk up & down the driveway, but not wet grass! The boy, Bear, doesn't care. He's just happy to be outside.

On his checkup, the vet said, "It's a good thing Luke has a bit of extra padding. Or his organs would have been hit by the attack!" So being an older dog, he's very lucky we feed him well lol.

The pits have now been deemed dangerous dogs and Pierce County has to deal with them. I had to write a declaration about what happened and what I've witnessed out of these animals. We have an ordinance that any dogs deemed dangerous, can only be kept by paying a yearly $500 each, license to keep them. And they cannot be off a leash and MUST be muzzled at all times. IF there are any further attacks...no matter how minor, they will be put down. Depending on how they view the paperwork already in play...they may be put down now.

No way was I going to have the blood of a child on my hands!!! So I made sure EVERYONE knew these dogs were vicious!

And the staff in power is working to ban them from the Island period. These dogs were not registered at all, so there are some reprocussions coming. Not sure what, but we shall see when it happens.

How can anyone have a large family, children around all the time and have these vicious dogs around them? Well I have my opinions, but I'll keep my comments to that.

Anyway...I love hearing about other puppy dog's quirks lol. It's so funny wet grass.

Toni

Happy Haunting!

Ok, here's the loot:
Creepy Crawler Bat Fruit flavored gummy candy (he's the size of a small bat too! Too cute!)
A Coffee chocolate lollipop (which won't make it past tonight!)
Gel clings for the windows of pumpkins & spiders
Beautiful pumpkin dish cloth & pot holder

Now for the seeds:
Black Brandywine Tomatoes (in a cute autumn seed envelope!)
Orange Strawberry Tomatoes (I've been eying these!)
Earl of Edgecomb Tomatoes (on my wish list!)
Coyote Tomatoes (can you hear the howls!)
Black Russion Tomatoes
Music Garlic bulbils (to protect me from the vampires!)
Blacktail Watermelon
Orangeglo Watermelon
Round Black Spanish Radishes (I've been eying these too!)
Oriole Swiss Chard (one of my favorites. Grew it for the first time this year)
Kandy Korn Corn (sweet corn is on my list to grow for 2010!)
Burgess Buttercup squash (Yum!)
Adapazari squash (Yum!)
Sweet Meat squash (Yum!)
Sweet Dumpling squash (Yum! can you tell I like winter squash? LOL!)
Pomme d'Or pumpkins (orange size pumpkins!)
Winter Luxury Pumpkin
Baby Bear Pumpkins
Prizewinner Hybrid Pumpkin
Jack be Little Pumpkins
Big Moon Pumpkins (great minds think alike!)

Thank you so much for all the great things Donna! I'm going to treat the carpal tunnel now. LOL!
Orange Tender sweet watermelon

Thanks again, Donna!

Don't forget everyone, please send your ghoulishly good treats to your partner by feind-day (Oh...I mean friday!)

10. You get winded from knocking on the door.

9. You trick or treat with a beer koozy not a pumpkin pail.

8. You ask for high fiber candy only.

7. When someone drops a candy bar in your bag,
you lose your balance and fall over.

6. People say: 'Great Boris Karloff Mask,'
And you're not wearing a mask.

5. When the door opens you yell, 'Trick or...'
And can't remember the rest.

4. By the end of the night,
you have a bag full of restraining orders.

3. You have to carefully choose a costume that won't dislodge your hairpiece.

2. You're the only Power Ranger in the
neighborhood with a walker.

And the number one reason Seniors should not go
Trick Or Treating...
1. You keep having to go home to pee.

Guilty of #9

I hope you like your treats...cuz I dont want any tricks here(ok that doesn't sound right ROTF)

Oooo only 18 more days til Halloween!!!

I hope everyone got their packages out today and are enjoying the Halloweenie sites I've found. Sunday starts the thirteen days before Halloween!

Well, I'm working on Christy's box...Poor girl has been under the weather for so long...and her little one too. Hope you both have recovered well and energy is coming back. I'm so sorry you ended up with this crud.

Take care,

Toni

If I could make it happen, I'd have palm trees out my window, never snow. Always thought I'd make it further southwest than NY! LOL!

Joan

I mailed your package out today. Sorry so late!!! Delivery confirmation number 0308690 0002 2019 5425. Let me know when it arrives. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Cris

Cris

Cris sent:
Witches pet costume (eyeing Pepper - I'll try to take her picture in it. :) )
cute little pumpkin votive holder
hold package of tea light votive candles
Halloween themed foam picture frames
sweet little scarecrow pick for decorating
Halloween cookie cutters
Halloween pot holder
Happy Halloween card
TONS of seeds
southern giant curled mustard
early white bush scallop squash
black beauty egg plant
black beauty zucchini squash
derby garden bean
silver queen sweet corn
sugar baby watermelon
pencil pod black wax garden bean
butter & sugar sweet corn
red cored chantenay carrot
golden delicious musk melon
spacemaster cucumber
honey dew cantaloupe
snake gourd
birdhouse gourd
simpson black seeded lettuce
caveman's club gourd
nest egg gourd
mooregold winter squash
squash cocozelle
black beauty eggplant
california blackeye pea #5
jack o lantern pumpkin
golden delicious cantaloupe
speckled roman tomato
Lots of these had handwritten instructions on the cutest little Halloween notepads!
AND..... Cris sent me handwritten recipes for:
Fresh refrigerator pickles
Pasta con cucuzza e fave
stewed cucuzza squash
Everything was wrapped or tucked into Halloween wrapping paper or bags! It was totally generous and personalized!!
Just totally wonderful and sweet! (((BIG HUG))
Thank you soooo much Cris!

Joan

Some people believe that the association of garlic warding off vampires has to do with bug or animal bites. One is rabies. You can get rabies from any animal bite from an animal that has rabies. Remember Cujo (Stephen King) getting rabies from the bat? Anyway, I guess if you have rabies you become fixated on certain scents. One of them being garlic.

Another theory is that of mosquito bites. Since mosquitos suck blood, they fly and can be warded off be garlic, it's not a difficult jump to vampires (if you have a vivid imagination.)

Anyway, here's a little more info!

Oh well, atleast he will get to go out with my mom and dad. And then after tomorrow night, we are leaving right away Sunday. A long weekend, but once it is over, I will get to relax!
Toni and I are swapping after I get back ( and Becky your box too, you know what I mean!) I have an order that is not here yet.

Joan