Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Autumn

This week, Patti is looking forward to Autumn for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. For so many reasons, autumn is probably my most favorite time of year. Primarily, I love the colors, and then there’s the cooler weather, not to mention less biting bugs and irate red-wing blackbirds. Of course, any time of year is great at the Chicago Botanic Garden but autumn is a very special season full of bright flowers and glowing foliage.

Autumn is one of the few times in the year that most of our family is able to get together and there is nothing more fun than our Family Fall Festival which is usually held at our daughter’s house in Indiana. She really puts on a terrific show with festive decorations that include Halloween characters, many of which are animated. The kids love it!

The Morton Arboretum in Lisle is the ideal place to visit in autumn when the trees are at their most colorful. A membership to the Chicago Botanic Garden gets you into the Arboretum for free and you can spend the day taking in the sights.

And what would autumn be without a trip to the pumpkin farm. This one is in South Barrington, Illinois, but we also visit a couple in Indiana and Wisconsin. They are a little more low-key but usually just as enjoyable.

And finally, one of my all-time favorite Halloween shots. “Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog,” and a Big Mac to go, please.

Halloween Challenge – Graveyard

The subject for Jennifer Nichole Wells’ Halloween Challenge today is graveyard.  It’s difficult for me to think of cemeteries as spooky. Part of the Sunday routine when I was a very small child was a morning walk with my father that often took us through the local cemeteries in London.  He would point out all the beautiful monuments and would read the inscriptions on the headstones. Many of the people interred there were famous and my father’s stories about them were fascinating.   Now, very often when we visit a place for the first time, I look out for the old churchyards and wander around amongst the tombstones remembering those walks with my Dad.  For more on Jennifer’s Halloween Challenge go to https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/10/27/jnws-halloween-challenge-graveyard/

A cemetery in Elgin, Illinois. As an avid genealogist I have a great interest in, and respect for, those who are buried in these graveyards, hoping that other people show the same consideration for our loved ones at rest in similar places around the world.

The graveyard at St Matthias Mission Catholic Church near New Fane, Wisconsin.

St Michael’s Cemetery, a Mission of Shepherd of the Hills Congregation in Wisconsin.

Halloween Challenge – Fall

We’re at Goebbert’s Pumpkin Farm which must mean it’s Fall.  Jennifer Nichole Wells has selected Fall or Autumn for today’s Halloween Challenge and I’ve made a special trip to the farm for this purpose.  Everything looks very colorful at this time of year especially when the sun’s shining.

I wanted to find somewhere different to take autumn pictures this year and during our trip up to Duluth we stopped off at Council Grounds State Park in Merrill, Wisconsin. The trees were just starting to change color.

And of course, it wouldn’t be Autumn without a trip to the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. We’ve been making this pilgrimage every year for more than forty years and Mother Nature never disappoints.  For more on Jennifer’s Halloween Challenge go to https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/10/18/jnws-halloween-challenge-fallautumn/

Halloween Challenge – Night

Who knows what you might see at night on Halloween!  For more on Jennifer Nichole Wells’ Halloween Challenge go to https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/09/26/jnws-halloween-challenge-2/

Halloween Challenge – Corn Maze & Hay Ride

This is a tale of two fall festivals.  The first two images were taken last year at a well-known suburban pumpkin farm where, for a not inconsiderable sum of money, the kids were invited to find their way around a corn maze, see tigers and feed giraffes, go for a hay ride and watch pig races, along with a whole bunch of other activities.  Admittedly the maze was well set out, with a reasonably comfortable path to follow but, like Christmas and Thanksgiving, Halloween has become sadly over-commercialized. Have our expectations become so high, in this neck of the woods, that everything has to be done on such a lavish scale?

Fast-forward to this year and a trip that we took this week to Willow Springs Garden near Wausau in Wisconsin.  What a difference!  Everything except the food and pumpkins was free.  The petting zoo consisted of a donkey, one goat and a few chickens.  kids could amuse themselves by trying their hand at an old-fashioned corn shucker or, instead of a fancy bouncy castle, they could wear themselves out by jumping along the tops of a series of hay bales. The path through the corn maze was uneven and painfully strewn with rocks, just like you would expect a cornfield to be, but no-one seemed to mind.  And the hay ride was awesome!  Give me a good old-fashioned country Fall Festival every time!  For more on Jennifer Nichole Wells Halloween Challenge go to https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/09/26/jnws-halloween-challenge-2/

Halloween Challenge – Cat

Once again, I had to do a spot of improvisation for Jennifer Nichole Wells’ fourth day of her Halloween Challenge. The topic is Cat and I would normally associate black cats with Halloween, however, there were no black cats in the photo files, only a white cat named Sugar.  What to do?  Well, work a little bit of Halloween magic of course!  For more on Jennifer’s Halloween Challenge go to https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/10/02/jnws-halloween-challenge-ghost/

Halloween Challenge – Pumpkin

Today is the first day of Jennifer Nichole Wells’ Halloween Challenge which runs through the entire month of October.  Jennifer has picked a Pumpkin for the first challenge and so, apparently, did this squirrel who made himself at home in the remains of one of our Halloween pumpkins last year. For more on Jennifer’s Halloween Challenge go to https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/09/26/jnws-halloween-challenge-2/

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