Frost on the Pumpkin...

Usually Halloween in Washington State, at least in the Puget Sound region, is a wet drizzly night. You wear your costumes, and then cover them all up with sweatshirts and coats and mittens. When we were little, we lived out in the country, so Dad would drive us in to Navy Housing in Oak Harbor, and we would go through Victory Homes and fill our pillow cases with all the candy.

Mom and Dad would stay at a friends house while we walked all over the housing area, then walk across the street to the regular civilian houses. Oak Harbor was really small back then, and we could trick or treat for several hours and walk back to the house where mom and Dad were waiting for us.

there was no checking our candy to make sure it was safe, we knew it was. There was no throwing out the homemade cookies and popcorn balls and apples because no one thought of hiding razor blades or ex-lax in them.

We wore old clothes and usually dressed like hobos, or pirates or a princess. Sometimes Mom would cut holes in an old sheet and we would be a ghost. We always wore our costumes to school, and after school we would hurry home, eat dinner fast and then go to the church for a Halloween party and then the trick or treating would begin.

Hardly any time were we rained out totally, and only a very few times was it cold enough to freeze.

This year it Froze. It froze hard! The past two nights the temps have been way below freezing, down in the low 20's F. The newscasters were talking about having to really bundle the kids up good so they would not get frostbite. It is COLD!

the nights are clear, and the stars are twinkling brightly. Yesterday morning at 630 I was up and looked out the front door in time to see the sun rise and shine it's purple/pink/mauve light onto the Olympic Mountains. It was gorgeous! The same this morning, only there was a low fog on the sound, so the fog was turning pink. The frost on the car was pink from the reflection, and the birds were all huddled on the telephone lines trying to get as much warmth out of the rays as they could.

Soon the sun had cleared the alder trees out back and the frost started dripping off the poles on the deck, and the branches of the peach tree were clear. The frosty morning was waking up. I LOVE it!!!