Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Yes that is me... Mom didn't recognize me in the picture I sent everyone because of my colored Halloween contacts

I love this hat!!

Our extra puppy pumpkin in the window!

Brian and Kona watching for Trick-or-Treaters

Our pumpkin display... admittedly not that grand as my pumpkins were all so small...

We had about 85 trick-or-treaters and managed to get rid of all our Halloween Candy (thank goodness!!)

10 little Owl Pumpkins

I love my little owl pumpkins so much that I made 10 more over yesterday and today for halloween tomorrow. Just felt like doing something different this year.

Happy Halloween from Tag and Kona

Poor dogs... look what I make them do! I had to rake up some leaves for the pumpkin bags anyhow and thought it might make a cute picture... they both fought me the whole time. (I have raw beef bones in my hand to bribe them to sit there!!)

Gellatley Nut Farm Spooktakular Walk

Brian and I managed to find some LED tea lights at Walmart so I was able to submit my pumpkins for the Spooktakular Walk at the Nut farm... All the pumpkins submitted are considered donated and are given out to care homes in the area to enjoy after the event... I thought that was a great idea!

I got my pumpkins all set up along the trail

Brian and I headed down after dark to go check out all the pumpkins submitted by people in the community... there were some awesome pumpkins... really creative!

My pumpkins looked so cute and they were the only owls there... also, no one else did a series of 3 like this!

We made our donation to the food bank and had an awesome time! It was a great feeling to participate in a community event... we will have to do more of this type of thing.

King's Quest 7

When Lorissa was out at Thanksgiving (who is into video games and awesome at drawing) for some reason it jogged my memory of when I was in probably around grade 11 and we were into King's Quest 7. One day I was bored watching someone else play video games so I started drawing the cover of the game and it turned out pretty good. Anyhow, I wanted to show Lorissa, but of course I couldn't find it... now, when looking for something else, here it is! (I emailed it to her and figured I would blog it too...)

Halloween Pumpkin Owls

I decided to carve some pumpkins for a community event tomorrow night. You carve a pumpkin and bring it down to the nut farm for display after dark on the trails... there are prizes and free drinks so I thought it would be fun. Still not sure whether I can enter or not as I haven't been able to find any LED lights anywhere... whatever happened to using tea lights?!

I researched and found a design I liked, I drew it on paper and then made some changes to make it my own when I drew it on the pumpkin... time to get a drill and a knife and get carving!

They all 3 of them are.. I plan on making a bunch of these for my front door this halloween, I think it will look really fun!

And with the lights out! So cool...

I had to laugh because Brian didn't think I was capable of doing anything like this... he has only ever seen my simple pumpkins (which I love by the way) haha.... anyhow, he was pretty impressed.

Pirate Engagement

I totally forgot to post this! In September I got together with Barbra and Ian and did their engagement portraits that have a hint of pirate about them for their pirate themed wedding next summer of 2014. Its going to be so much fun!

Mature Shaggy Mane Mushrooms

Tired of my mushrooms yet? Well... this will be the final post about them (for this year anyhow!)  The Shaggy Manes have matured and look super cool right now! They have the black inky bottoms and are starting to curl upwards. The ink is really inky... its dripping every where... I got it all over my hands and on the camera just taking these pictures but, totally worth it. I just love having something like this in my own back yard. Looking forward to doing the Mushroom Tour next Thanksgiving in Vernon with Mom!!

Neat hey?!

Shaggy Mane Mushroom Disected

I can't explain my mushroom fascination lately... clearly I have nothing better to do. This is another shaggy mane mushroom that I found about 5 feet away from the clumps and its much bigger than the others. What is neat is when you break it open, the mushroom smell is very fragrant. The top kind of just sits on the stem and has a lot of movement... kind of like a bell.

This mushroom is starting to get the inky coloring around the bottom that is what happens when these mushrooms mature. Cool hey?

Shaggy Mane Mushrooms

I found something cool in our backyard! Last night I was cleaning up apples off the ground for the green waste removal today and I found a bunch of mushrooms growing out of the ground… without really thinking about it I started knocking them down because I didn’t want Kona to start munching on something that I have no clue whether its poisonous or not. Then I remembered I had heard that there are tonnes of varieties of mushrooms in the Okanagan so I stopped wrecking them so I could figure out what they were. This morning (since it got too dark last night) I did some research and took some pictures (of course) and discovered I have Shaggy Mane growing in our back yard! They are edible… so I blocked off the area they are growing to protect them from the dogs to see what happens. I don’t know if I will eat them but it’s a really neat thing to have growing in the yard!

I did some research to find out more about them and here is a bit about Shaggy Mane Mushrooms if you're interested!

Shaggy Mane

Coprinus comatus

• cap is up to 15cm wide, narrow, cylidrical, white, and covered in thin, shaggy red/brown scales.
• older specimens have a cap that is bell-shaped.
• flesh is white, soft.
• gills are narrowly attached to the stem and white/grey when young.
• the flesh and gills of older specimens liquefies into a black inky mass.
• partial veil leaves an inferior, possibly moveable ring on the white stem.
• grows scattered or grouped together in grassy areas covering decomposing wood.
• appears in early spring and late fall.
• has a pleasant taste with no odor; cook before eating.
• tip: collect younger specimens and/or remove blackening areas which have a more bitter taste.
• tip: cooking with water shortly after collecting helps to prevent the dish from turning into a black inky mess.
• an edible look-alike is Coprinus sterquilinus, which similar in appearance but smaller, with fewer scales and growing on dung.

Info taken from http://northernbushcraft.com/mushrooms/shaggyMane/notes.htm