Ducks and Pumpkins

AT this time of year many of the low-lying fields in Saanich are flooded and provide perfect winter quarters for a wide variety of waterfowl. Here is a Mitchell Farms pumpkin field and a flock of Mallard Ducks.

Pumpkin Graveyard

Here's an event that seems to be developing into a Halloween tradition. Every year after Halloween is over people take their carved jack o'lantern pumpkins to Mount Douglas Park and line them up along the roadside or rail fences. It seems to me I noticed a few other pumpkin dumping grounds in recent years but I can't remember where. In any case there were many more pumpkins this year at Mount Douglas Park than when I first noticed this custom a few years ago. It seems a very fitting tradition in that it is probably illegal to dump pumpkins like this and an intrinsic part of Halloween has always been the upsetting of norms and rules. It's also very striking to see many carved pumpkins decaying together like this - it seems appropriately ghoulish.

Halloween

I'm feeling very old today because, for the first time in my life, I forgot that yesterday was Halloween. The entrance to my place is not on the street so I don't get any trick or treaters and it just slipped my mind that Halloween was taking place outside. Anyway, here's a belated Halloween photo that I took a few days ago on the beach below Mount Douglas Park. Someone carved this pumpkin and then set it on display there.

Boo!

It's that time again! Carving pumpkins is one of my favorite part of Halloween I think. - Fern

Trick or Treat!

Halloween is interesting in that it is uniquely North American in many respects, though the festival has roots that go back to the Celtic Samhain and earlier. It's a holiday that is not liked much by church or state yet it persists. I like it because it is not quite politically correct. It's always a little bit wrong and though the PC police keep trying to clean it up and make it safer, they don't realize that its power and popularity stem from its breaking of the rules, its transgressions against the norms and its danger. Halloween is when we let our fears out.

Though we've grown pretty used to it, it is nevertheless very strange that on this one night we encourage our children to dress as demons or zombies or witches and roam the neighborhood to collect candy. And, whether we make these pumpkins into pie or not, if we're a North American householder, we'll probably have one on our porch, suitably carved with an evil grin and, when you think about it, that's pretty strange too.