I took this picture in early October and meant to post it yesterday. Ah well, typical of my time management! I got a kick out of seeing the pumpkins before they were moved to the stores and the Pumpkin Patch - with my favorite Ventura icon, Two Trees, in the background. (Notice the other Ventura/SoCal icons - palm trees and a cell tower disguised as a palm tree!)
I don't usually enjoy wearing costumes, but since we were having a Halloween celebration at the library, I got into the spirit and dressed as a Tolkien eleven warrior.
We had a magician and treats for the kids but my treat was seeing so many great costumes on our library patrons of all ages!
The three weeks before, during, and after our Chicago vacation (never got around to blogging about our fun trip to a fabulous city, so take a look at our photos that never got edited: Oct. 22-23, Oct. 24, and Oct. 25) brought the return of two very familiar and unwelcome phenomena in these parts - wildfires and fish-eating raccoons! Of course the heartbreak, loss, and danger of the former is on such a higher scale of importance - the latter doesn't compare. The media covered the horrible fires up and down SoCal extensively; I won't mention any more for now. Judging by the darkness of the sky the afternoon the Malibu fire began and the smoke in the air even the night we returned, the fires were horrible. But on a smaller scale, we seem to have lost all but one goldfish to a raccoon who seems to be ignoring our high-pressure water-shooting ScareCrow. It came back again last night - for at least the sixth time in three weeks - I thought it had eaten all the bigger fish, but I saw one survivor this morning!
