Fright Night

Halloween is on everyone's mind - or so it seems.  Apparently, one of the things people focus on is things that frighten us.

I appreciate the desire to have some fun and celebrate, but I have a harder time working from the 'scare' side.  If you want to know one thing that scares me, just look below.  One of my recurring stress dreams is being surrounded by tornadoes.  I've now seen enough footage, including some of the Parkersburg tornado, that these dreams have gotten too realistic for my own good.

Parkersburg tornado (AP story pic)

Now *that* is/was scary.  But, perhaps this is the wrong kind of scary.  Maybe I should be looking elsewhere?   So, try this:

I was told by someone that part of the roots of the tradition of carving faces into pumpkins was to create an object that scared bad spirits away.  I'm not doing fact checking on this - it doesn't really matter to me for the purposes of this post.  The last time I was involved in a pumpkin carving party, I was the guy who carved a pumpkin into the pumpkin (middle pumpkin, third row from the top).

So, if it qualifies as a 'scary' rendering of a pumpkin, will it frighten the 'Great Pumpkin' away?  It was, at least, a sincere attempt.

Only a farmer would carve a pumpkin on a pumpkin.

 So, which would be more frightening to you?  To see someone like this emerging from behind a pallet of walk-in cooler walls?

A not so sneeky pallet monster

 Or, seeing a reciprocating saw in the hands of this farmer?

If a saw in the farmer's hands isn't scary enough, nothing will scare you.

Look - Tammy made a promise that you would see actual pictures of the farmer if you all voted for us in the Dream Big/Grow Here contest.  We were only four votes short of first.  That deserves at least these pictures.
 
 Not too long after we had an aerial sprayer hit the West half of our farm, I received this picture of Mo Farah running away from a crop duster.  It was some much needed levity at the time.  But, I will say that chemicals and their pervasive use are a pretty scary thing.  In fact, this past Spring, when things were feeling overwhelming, I actually had a stress dream that featured tornadoes that spawned a crop duster.  It's enough to make me think I had a boggart in the dream.  This picture provides me with a humorous image - maybe I'll use it in my next stress dream. (ed. note: Harry Potter reference, sorry)

Ridikkulus!

And, last year at about this time, another CSA member sent us this picture.  It's another one of those images that has floated around the internet so much that it may be impossible to find the original source.  I don't get into the 'zombie' thing that so many other people do - and that's fine.  But, even if you don't get into it, you still have admit there is plenty of humor here.

Most farmers on tractors that old would be looking over their shoulder.

With all of the hype about zombies, it was a bit surprising to see how quickly a post by us of this particular picture on Facebook went completely batty.  The sad thing about this?  We have never had any post of picture do as well as this one did for number of people who viewed or 'liked' one of our posts.

But, we've decided that a clever grower of local foods that drives old tractors would grow cauliflower and throw it to the zombies.

Food choice of vegetarian zombies

 Have a safe Halloween.