Adventures in pumpkin carving!

As we don't celebrate Halloween in Australia, this is just my third Halloween ever! Whilst I have dressed up in previous years (a zombie geisha in 2008, a crazed butcher in 2009) this year was decidedly low key. But, there was pumpkin carving......

Excavating the pumpkin insides! Special, very costly (26 cents at the Jean Coutu) pumpkin carving implements were used.

If I had been more prepared I would have washed, dried and roasted those pumpkin seeds, but as it was, we carved in the late afternoon, with fading light and rapidly decreasing temperatures. My "pumpkin scooping" hand was numb..... and orange.

Et voila, it is a...... well, it's obvious right? Ok, so this was a free form carve - no stencil, no pencil even! I was going for a cat, in honour of Pistache and all the other cats that congregate around M's house.

(so much for a geeky image, though we both did think of trying to carve Tyler from MR)

It's alive!

Or, at least, alight!

(And one minute after this photo was taken, the wind whipped through the mouth and extinguished the candle)

Ahh, the aftermath. M snapped this photo of the (ever growing, he is surely ready for winter by now) resident squirrel snacking on kitty pumpkin.

Balcony! Critters! Basil!

The nights are getting colder and it is almost time to bring in the plants on my balcony. I am not sure where I am going to put them all - in my rush of planting this Spring I forgot about the fact that they can't stay outside all year. I have too many pots this year to just keep them on the kitchen floor as I did last winter!

One thing I do know - there are some little critters who are going to be very sad to see them go! I only hope they haven't hidden too many of their goodies in my plants......

I can't take any credit for it, though I do take pride - when I planted these basil plants they were nestled *under* the geranium! I was worried they weren't going to do well! I have eaten caprese salad all summer and still have not made a dent in it! I should have borrowed a food processor and made a kilo of pesto!

Little critters

When I blogged about my balcony garden, hollypop commented that she was happy her staircase garden wasn't frequented by furry little critters. As much as I really wish the squirrels would leave my garden alone, there are perks to living in a country with squirrels - they are adorable and provide hours of amusement!

This picture was taken during a hike/bush walk in Saguenay, a city about 5 hours north of Montreal (home of Saguenay hot dogs and the worst fish and chips I have ever eaten - a post for a later time!)

Balcony gardening

This year I have really enjoyed establishing a little balcony garden. In Australia, my balcony was terrorised by possums, so I could only have relatively spiky and non-edible plants. (Luckily we were three stories up and had a huge tree that created a beautiful green backdrop, so it didn't look too sparse.) Here, my balcony is terrorised by squirrels and, as I only recently found out, a raccoon! But, my friend A has devised a pretty much fool proof method of keeping the squirrels away. Squirrels don't really seem to eat the plants, but love to dig in the soil, burying their little treasures in anticipation of the cold winter. Of course, they are oblivious to the roots of the plants, so everything gets upended and broken and the plants suffer. But, if you place shards of tile in the soil, like little spikes, the squirrels seem to leave the plants alone - I guess it is not worth the pain in their little paws!

In this picture you can see my spearmint plant. I had heard mint was ultra hardy and I wanted something I could be fairly sure would make it through the summer and the transition inside for the winter. It is growing well and I love having a store of fresh mint on hand for cocktails and the occasional roast lamb!