Pumpkin Pup

What do you stuff your pumpkins with? Well, dogs are the obvious choice. I'm not sure what is going to happen with that pumpkin topper balancing oddly on its poor little head. Weird. But who knows what I was thinking when I painted this timely piece. Although, the color still pops! 

These days, I usually find squirrels popping out of my pumpkins. I should paint that. I'm sure that scenario has happened on your doorstep. The pesky squirrels just keep eating until they find themselves eating from the inside out. Whoopsy. 

Stuffed for www.illustrationfriday.com

A weekend on the river...

What a bonus!  It was 80 degrees this weekend.  The Sun was shining, the Honeycrisps and pumpkins were ripe and the leaves were brilliantly colored.  We weren't even planning one more trip to our favorite pizza place. The Nelson Stone Barn.  But we were lucky enough to get a bonus weekend on the river.  Our first stop was for apples.  A whopping $50 for a big bag of Honeycrisps.  Holy Cow.  I guess you have to be a Millionaire to eat apples these days.  Then we hiked on over to Maiden Rock bluff.

Enjoy the view.  Then read this interesting tale about Maiden Rock...

Princess Winona (Princess We-Noh-Nah) is the central Native American character in a "Lover's Leap" romantic legend set at Maiden Rock on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin in the United States. Princess Winona leaps to her death from Maiden Rock rather than marry a suitor she does not love.^[1]There are several variations of the story. Winona's father is sometimes said to be Chief Red Wing of what is now Red Wing, Minnesota or Chief Wabasha (Wapasha) of a village identified as Keoxa, now known as Winona, Minnesota. Rather than marry a suitor she does not love, Winona chooses to leap from the cliff of Maiden Rock to her death. Who the suitor is depends on the version of the tale. Some versions featured him as a French trapper; others say he is an Indian of another tribe.

In the traditional Dakota language, "Winona" is not a personal name, but a general term for a first-born child of any class distinction who happens to be female.

The concept of the central figure as a "princess" is in keeping with a European-American stereotype about Native American "princesses." In fact, the Sioux do not have an equivalent title for "princess" in any of the major dialects.^[2]

Today "Winona" has become regularly used as a personal and place name throughout the United States.

A train chugs down the tracks.

A yellow explosion.

No Fall trip is complete without a visit to a pumpkin patch.

Who is this goofball?

A feather in Pepin.

Look at the sunset creeping down through the window of the old barn pilings.  A bottle of vino, a romantic setting and a fantastic pizza just pulled from a burning hearth.  Life is good.

Pop Out Kitty

click to enlarge

Pop Out Kitty is ready to burst!  Well, kind of.  He popped out of the pumpkin.  And popping is kind of like bursting.  If I would have painted the stem flopped over on the floor I would have nailed it.  But then again, this is something from my archives.  As usual I'm flipping through the virtual files for an IF match. 

And have you ever seen a pumpkin being catapulted through the air  at a Fall festival?  Burst.  Definitely burst. 

Is that a pumpkin or a giant orange elephant?

We had a smashing good time at the Stillwater Harvest Fest & Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off. And as the empty glass suggests there was more to do than weigh pumpkins. There was a chili competition. I sampled several yummy kinds of chili. BUT......I had to save alot of room for the beer tasting.

I have some very exciting news. A world record was set at this year's fest. Before this the largest pumpkin weighed in at a measly 1,725 pounds. But a pumpkin from New Richmond tipped the scales at 1,810 pounds! (not pictured) The farmer said that he planted the seeds in April and that the little pumpkin didn't even start growing until June 26th. After that he said you could literally watch it grow. He expects it to take around 12-14 hours to carve by the way.

Huge watermelons and long mystery veggies.

Honey, I made a wrong turn.

A little flooding. All the moisture this year made for record pumpkin growing I guess.

My friend Christina and her husband Travis. They didn't want to miss a moment of the pumpkin kayak race. You heard me.

Our local news personality Eric Perkins was among the 4 pumpkin racers. What a hoot!

This guy just doesn't know how to steer a pumpkin. Can you imagine?

Yes, that's a real deal gondola.

We climbed what seemed like 1,000 steps to take this photograph. I may have burned off 1 sip (among many) of beer. Darn we missed the pumpkin drop. Next year...

Pumpkin spice and everything nice.

Kittens, ponies, pumpkins and beautiful scenery. A fall day doesn't get much better than this. We followed the Mississippi river down to Red Wing. And finally climbed Barn Bluff. What a view! Then we crossed over to Wisconsin and drove all the way down to our favorite pizza place for dinner. The Stone Barn. But we made a few stops along the way.

Our first stop was in Maiden Rock. We were on a mission to get some bird seed bread at the Pelican bakery there. But the darn bread was sold out.

So our next stop was for pie cookies in Stockholm. Whew! I got the last 2 cookies.

Then on to Maiden Rock Apples. No fall road trip is complete without stopping at an apple orchard.

And lastly we found the sweetest little pumpkin patch. Cheap pumpkins in all shapes and sizes. Barn cats, ponies and smiles. Now for some pizza...

My Pop Out Kitty illustration will probably always make an appearance during my October posts. For more Halloween kitties visit http://www.gattinamycats.blogspot.com/

Arts and Crafts

Halloween is the only time of year that I drag out, dare I say it...crafts. Of course I did these paintings. But I also painted all my little craftsy pumpkin buddies. We're only friends during Halloween. When I was doing juried art fairs, crafts were kind of a thorn in my side. I remember one instance in particular. I refer to it as, "the mushroom lady" show. Her booth was across from mine. And her clay mushrooms were selling as fast as her hairy, sleeveless husband could rake in the money. O.K. I might have been a little jealous. And deep down I might have thought one of the mushrooms would look cute in my garden. Darn it, I do like my mushrooms. But I refused to buy one. Then later that Summer I did another show. One for real artists, The Stockholm Art Fair. I wouldn't have to worry about crafts showing up at that one. But wait for it...is that?... the mushroom lady! #@$#! And the worst part of all is that I still wanted to buy one of those darn mushrooms.