Halloweenies and a Kindness

A very nice neighbor took these photos of the two youngest boys and kindly emailed them to me this morning.

This is middle boy Luke's favorite time of year. The little one Oliver is 22 months and didn't quite understand what was happening. He's a quick learner and by the third house of a door opening and a very nice person holding a huge bowl of candy at him that he could take and eat, he was onboard with the whole thing.

Our little hamlet of Caledonia, IL, population 199, really comes into it's own on Halloween. It was settled in the 1820s and we have a mixture of Victorian, Craftsman, and later period houses. We have a house across the street straight out of a modern development. We think it may have landed here accidentally. Also, there are some historical old tenant farmer cabins dotted about, still proudly wearing their last whitewash now dulled from a few decades of wear and tear. Within a mile down the road we have an herb farm, a pumpkin farm, a sheep farm & wool mill, an alpaca farm, and miles and miles of feed-corn and soy. It's harvest time around here and the corn is being trucked all day long to the mill down the street.

Most folks dust off their annual decorations and the houses become spookily festooned from September on. The retired couple next door regularly plant pumpkins in their garden and then wheel them out front in a wooden trailer, free for the taking. Yesterday afternoon was lovely and warm here and I was still planting mums. Then around 5:00 we put the final touches on the pumpkiny graveyard out front. As we set off last night, we met a very nice couple and their family of four boys. As he was an amateur photographer he had a pretty nice camera and asked if he could take Jango Fett's picture. We said sure and he kindly offered to send us copies of his pictures. Which was just as well, since my camera was out of commission and I was really hoping to get pictures this year for Grandma.

Just when I contemplate the downward spiral of society, people are still being nice to one another out there :D