Halloween Time Machine 🎃

 WARNING! Caution: Contains Corgies

 That happiest black catty-ist time of the year!

                    Nothing like getting a 'bird' of a Halloween! I finally figured out that this witch rides a  

                    pumpkin, with squash wings, a broom tail and small pumpkin head, to create said: 'bird'...
                                                       

Aren't they a pair?  How sweet it is!

 

It has been rather a fine time for perusing the past this season...

Have been seeking out old Stephen King books/films, Hammer Horror, and Dark Shadows...

Watched all 3+ hours of Salem’s Lot recently. Could stand some evisceration…the book is much better. I love Stephen’s sense of humor. The kid with all the Universal monster posters  was autobiographical I am betting. ‘Why are you so interested in magic and monsters?’ Asks dad.I recall my mom asking ‘Why can’t you be like the other little girls?’ When I was caught reading a book on Zen Buddhism at age 11. 

                                                              Not Like The Others…

                                                         Stephen loves his Corgies….

It seems that the time-tested classics are always best. And, true, while the old Universal Monsters was where my esoteric education began, there is still nothing like that chilling thrill that can only be ascribed to:

And, Christopher Lee...my favorite Dracula...

                           Truly...is it any wonder?
 

                       Lee's autobiography is a wonderful read. Such a droll sense of humor!

                       Chris, you were never 'too tall or too foreign looking' for your many fans!

                       Waiting in the dark of midnight, there was just something about seeing the

                       opening credits with those eternally blood-tingling words:                                                                    

                                            https://www.hammerfilms.com/

Horror of Dracula…Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Michael Gough

                                                                   +  +  + + + +          

            Which brings us, of course, to Dark Shadows and Jonathan Frid's Barnabas Collins...

                                                                          

                                 Indeed, the sudden appearance of Cousin Barnabas, so like that of his

                          'ancestor', was like a shot of old world culture to the jaded denizens of Collinwood.

                                                                     

                       Barnabas at The Old House, with portrait of his ageless love, Josette...
                       Where else on 60s television could one find such gothic romance?

                                                         Dark Shadows: The Beginning

                                       One of the most frightening things of the 60s, The Tent Dress!    

                                                                               +++++++++

             But wait! We cannot forget the stunning performance of Frank Langella's Dracula --

                                                   on both stage and screen.

                                                                     

                                                                

                         Featuring the odd and uniquely shuddersome art of  Edward Gorey   

                                      Langella and Lee, both of Italian heritage. Indeed...

                                                          Frank with Kate Nelligan

                                              He:  "May I offer you a glass of invisible wine, my dear?"

                                             She:   "Aren't you partaking?"

                                             He:   "No. I never drink...invisible wine..."

                                                                     

                               This 1979 production was also enhanced by the skills of

                                         Donald Pleasence and Sir Laurence Olivier

                                                                    

                                                                    + + + + + 

                              But what of the ladies of the house? The House of Hammer?

The reigning Queen of Horror during the heyday of Hammer was of course Ingrid Pitt, as Carmilla, in the singularly sinister Vampire Lovers.

Ingrid was perfect for the role of the lady vampire as imagined by the Irish writer Sheridan LeFanu.

            Peter Cushing getting cushy with Ingrid in Vampire Lovers.

                                                                            + + + + + + +

Although not benefiting from a Hammer budget, House of Filmtexx produced a couple of bizarre and offbeat miniscule budget shorts featuring Anne Ra as the vampire Avanka in that much-overlooked and undervalued film Fix My Gas…

                                            + + + + + + + + +

               Would you believe...*Snow*? A week before Halloween?

AUTUMN ARBORETUM

                                                                             September at last 🍂🍁

 Mullein leaves. Good lung and cough medicine. Dry leaves to

       keep on hand for tea. The yellow flowers on top are sweet.

    Mullein is an invasive species. But a good one.

More of a pentagon than hexagon. Hard to find a nice specimen

where the basalt has been chopped through to build roadways.

 

 

Big Basalt Boulders

whumped down by catastrophic floods are

found throughout the Arboretum.

 

 

J Harlen Bretz, a highly credentialed field geologist writing

 in the 1920s dubbed the Cordilleran Ice Sheet the 

 "Spokane Ice Sheet" 

from whence came the "Spokane Flood" upon which these 

massive giant basalt boulders traveled. 

 

Below: Taken from Amtrak window en route to Spokane 

following the Columbia River.  Scablandic looking hillsides

 carved along the Gorge.

"Like roads to Rome, all scabland rivers led to Pasco Basin."

J Harlen Bretz

I love the extra large basalt boulders deposited throughout 

the park.

"...huge numbers of erratics, giant boulders that didn't

 belong  naturally in the area" -- assumed to have traveled

 here from the flooding of ice sheets,  hidden in thickets 

like the backs of crouching trolls…

My favorite Grandmother Rock covered in moss and lichen

 at the Arboretum. She has traveled far to come to rest here

in Mooselvania. 

 

   Moose would seem to be at home among the ancient

 species now extinct like the giant beaver. They seem

  prehistoric.  Imagine carrying those antlers on your head!

 Strong necked moose.

 I love living in a protected wildlife area where I can

 take a short  hike and see moose in the wild.

 

  Roadside basalt. For some real Devils Tower like columns,

along Columbia/Paloose basin, check out HUGEfloods.com. 

https://hugefloods.com/Basalt.html

 

 

 Plenty of black, angular lava rock full of holes all about this 

region. Haven't seen so many traces of volcanic activity since I 

was on Mauna Kea area of Hawaii.

         Granite, Lava Rock and Sandstone all found in same space.

  This is a great area for research and study of this history! 

I have been wanting to travel west to the Grand Coulee and 

Moses Coulee, as they are fairly close by.

 

The Quillayute tribe and the Cowichan of B.C. Canada have 

many tales of catastrophic flooding and gigantic hailstones

  'so large many were killed, they beat down  the ferns and

 camas and berries, ice locked the rivers and no one could fish.' 

 

 

 

I noticed when I first arrived to Spokane that much of the

region of the Yakima Valley where my sister once lived had 

now gone from orchards into vineyards!

Check out link to learn more about why ice age flooding 

of these valleys delivered the silt that makes such award

 winning wines.

https://hugefloods.com/WashingtonWine.html

                                 Old apple orchards still producing now feral fruit at Arboretum.

 

More mullein! Among the fallen 🍎🍏fruit.

 

         Arboretum Spring, cottontail rabbits and marmots abound

                                     

                                        Garden Springs Creek

                                            

           Spied a pair of red-tailed hawks circling above.                              

 

  

Back home to my own stash of feral fruit…