Corner View: Tradition

Our little town of Barnesville, Ohio has an annual Pumpkin Festival.  It has been going on since the mid-sixties, although it was originally called The Fall Festival.  People in-town and even on the outskirts like us, decorate with scarecrows, mums, pumpkins, dried corn, old farm equipment, etc. It's a big deal!   The festival lasts four days beginning with the weighing-in of the pumpkins.  That is on Wednesday night and we always go--we love the festival food too.

Here are a smattering of my decorations this year.

Back Porch

Front Yard

Close-up of some mums and scare crows.

The beginning of the parade this year.

All of the queens, princesses, and little misses.

 These decorations are of the other house when we lived there.  They give you an idea of some of the porch arrangements in town.

 Wednesday night weigh -in.

Parade scenes from last year.

The parade lasted two hours this year. The sidewalks and lawns are packed with people

wanting to watch it.

Downtown is crowded.

The grandkids two years ago.  This year's pumpkin was bigger than this one pictured, but I forget the exact weight--it was 1500 and something.

 Fair rides are part of the festival also and Doug and the grandkids come over for Saturday afternoon and evening.  It's a great family time!

For more on corner views throughout the world, check out Francesca's.

Pumpkin Festival 2014

The annual Pumpkin Festival has  been going on since Wednesday.  It will close today at 5. Doug brought his three kids and his girlfriend and her  daughter to the parade.  We watched it from a friends' front yard.  Below are Melissa and the four kids lined up, waiting for candy.

 This is the beginning of the parade.  It lasted 90 minutes.
Below are Mike's aunt and uncle, Dave and Jeanette Hissom, who were parade grand marshals.  They do a lot before, during, and after with the festival and were given this title as a recognition of their time and effort.

 This is the first float. It has the queens and princesses on it.  My camera died right afterwards, so this is all I have that's decent of the parade.  Look in the upper right hand corner.  Most people decorate their yards and I think this is a pretty example.

 Doug and Melissa

sitting in front of our friends' house and festival display.

 Melissa is a city girl so she was truly amazed at the size of this years pumpkin.  It weighs 1, 514 pounds.  Here are Melissa, Peyton, Addy, Dillon, and Doug with Maddy on the big pumpkin.

                     The kids in front of one of the two runner-ups.

There are rides of course. 

Dillon and Peyton are shown here.

It was a fun time, though it was very hot and crowded.  Doug's Addy and Melissa's Maddy are 7 and 8 and both redheads.  We had several clashes of the redheads!  They wanted to do things together, but would both get easily upset.  I loss count of how many deep breaths my son had to take! Ha!

Maddy has never had to share Mama, and isn't thrilled about having to do so now.  Melissa's mother is helping Maddy adapt to this new picture.

It was a good week.  We had pictures taken for homecoming and all went well.  I will post some of those later.  We had them dress up and then we had them change to jeans, flannel shirts, and cowboy boots.  We took them to a friend's field with two gorgeous tractors  and bales of hay.   Wonderful!

Hope you have a terrific week!

Fall Flowers and Decorations

Pumpkin Festival is next weekend.  It is quite large. Thousands of people will be here in the four days of the festival (Wed. - Sun.).

Folks around here go all out in decorating.  Below shows you what I did.

Back Porch

Garage Door

Front Door (which is actually on the side)

Front Yard

(It's lit up with a spotlight at night.)

 Here are individual vignettes of the big  display.  The usual decorations are scarecrows, pumpkins, gourds, mums, and straw bales.  People will add antique  crocks, signs, chairs (as I did), etc.

 Here are my big mums.  The two local nurseries are quite busy and usually sell out of mums the weekend before the festival.  This year, the one sold out early and they had a huge field full. Luckily I went three weekends ago and got to choose from a great selection.

This week has been tiring.  I ended up missing school on Friday with a fibromyalgia flare  up.  Nothing terrible, just the usual.  I am in the middle of homecoming preparation.   The five seniors have been chosen as have the underclassmen(one each for freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. ) Pictures for them are Tuesday.  The actual ceremony is before the football game on Friday, October 10. Then there is a dance afterwards.  It is tiring, but fun.  I thoroughly enjoy it.

 It fits with something my mother taught me.  She said, "It hurts to sit, stand, lie down, and walk.  It's not like giving in and giving up makes the situation better.  So choose  what you want to do and do it.   If you have to be laid up for a few days after a special event, it will be worth it.    At least you'll be living to the fullest possible for you." Amen, mother, amen.