Windywillow

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Trees of Halloween

A howling welcome to all you tree lovers... this is the Halloween edition of The Festival of Trees.

"Pixie, kobold, elf and sprite.. All are on thier rounds tonight..
In the wan moon's silver ray, thrives their helter-skelter play."
~Joel Benton

OoooOooOoooo ooOoooo.... howls the halloween tree by Sasha Sandro

Larry Ayers at "Riverside Ramblers" has a post called Hunting For Monsters — by Joan Ryan which features a series of screechingly unearthly trees. See the monster above, eating anything that gets in its way!

Kelly at "Property of Kelly" has this stunningly haunting photo of a gnarled tree dissapearing into the mists above.

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A haiku by Olivia:
spooky trees waiting
for halloween to dance with
the witches at night
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Marja-Leena Rathja invites all you dearies for a walk in her Witchy Woods. Walk with her.. if you dare!

And Larry D. from "Wandering Around Kansas" goes out in search of a scary tree. Join him on a walk through the woods and see if he does find that terrifying tree!

Tree and Moon
from Marie at "Heimdal"

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"They say that in this midnight hour, The disembodièd have power
To wander as it liketh them, By wizard oak and fairy stream."
~William Motherwell
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dead trees:
J Hunt's mysterious and misty trees

Karen CB's vampiric " beast"

Scarlet Faerie's grim "wesitinsilence"

J.A.Richard's phantom tree 5


A. Decker from "Resonant Enigma" has several photos of wraithlike sleeping trees, here is one of them.

from "Digital Flower Pictures", an imposing weeping beech tree leaving you feeling quite claustrophobic.


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Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries talks about Frankentrees, whos trunks are protected with slabs of metal.

Karen from "Trees if You Please" has a couple pics of a creepy tree, long tree fingers stretched out, ready to grab any passers-by!

Googling for trees to possibly post, it even showed me a very spooky tree!

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Even the trees get scared sometimes. A few posts about the frightening life of trees themselves:

Bevson tells a dreadful story about how a tree was squeezed and crushed to death.. read about the
Strangler!

Ed at "Recycled Thoughts" has a picture of imprisoned trees. Certainly very terrifying for the trees!

John at "A D.C. Birding Blog" writes about the threats of invasive plants into the forests.

Greenman Tim at "Walking the Berkshires" tells the sad story of how Global warming can be bad for the sugar maples of the north.

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In Art, I came across some spine-chilling and spookish tree art:

Eileen McGann paints some wonderful watercolor trees, at first I mistook the paintings as stained glass. Have a look here: stained glass series of tree portraits

in deviantART, I found "Spooky Castle 2" by Lady Victoire

ikdomik's "Spooky Trees"

WombleFerret's "Ufton Wood - Moonshine Trees"


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The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire!

My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
To the obedient earth.
The trees shall be reaching all the winter.

It is a joy to walk in the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odors that partridges love.

- Robert Bly, Solitude Late at Night in the Woods
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From Dave Bonta, a photo and a poem.
A
corpselike skeleton leaf.
A poem about an unfortunate tree by Dave Bonta "Potted Tree"

And just in today, scaring me on Halloween, is Rachel's frightful post at Frizzy Logic

Also just arriving today is this tree, strangely resembling ET, who did indeed scare a few kids and grownups!
by Anna Scott


A symbol of hope from a ghost of the past, in the appalling world of WW2, Anne Frank's chestnut tree is struggling with life.


Andy H sent me a link to some houses from another planet. I did enjoy looking at them all, but this tree-shaped house was pretty wild, and slightly creepy, and my favorite: crazy house

Not exactly spooky, but definitely eerie! Kelly and Chris came across an interesting shoe tree on their travels.

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December's host will be Riverside Rambles. You can send your posts to: larry (dot) ayers (at) gmail (dot) com , before 29th November.
For more info, see
Festival of the Trees.
And please continue now to part 2, "Trees and Fruit of Autumn" in the post below this one, of the breathtaking colors of the season.

Trees and Fruit of Autumn

Part Two of November's Festival of Trees...
I couldn't resist posting some of the breathtaking colors of leaves and fruit in this colorful season.
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"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
~George Eliot

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Autumn leaves and a haiku by "Princess Haiku"

Kelly at "Property of Kelly" has the most amazing glowing orange tree pic!

Poem by Joan Ryan
Larry Ayers of "Riverside Rambles"
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"Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn."
~Elizabeth Lawrence

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Sumac
"Digital Flower Pictures"

Maple Leaf
Dave Bonta at "Via Negativa"

From David at "Snappy's Gardens Blog", a quote and a found leaf.

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falling leaves
hide the path
so quietly
~John Bailey, "Autumn," a haiku year, 2001, as posted on oldgreypoet.com

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Drifting Leaves
Kate from "Kate Smudges in Earth, Paint and Life". She has the lovely lyrics of
Autumn Leaves sung by Eva Cassidy written there.

Wild Cherries
Connie at "Notes From a Cottage Garden"

Rowan
Blackswamp Girl at "A Study in Contrasts"


Apples
Lorianne of "Hoarded Ordinaries"

Apples
Matron at "Down on the Allotment"

Quince Tree Tai Haku at "Earth, Wind and Water"

Pumpkins
JLB at "Arboreality"

Scarlet Oak Acorns
From Entangled at Tangled Branches

and lastly, from "Lost Roses", a maple tree in snow in October!

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"November comes And November goes, With the last red berries And the first white snows. With night coming early, And dawn coming late, And ice in the bucket And frost by the gate. The fires burn And the kettles sing, And earth sinks to rest Until next spring." - Clyde Watson
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Sunday, October 28, 2007

spider in the flowers

Just a quick post.. my camera is still acting up. Seems like my kids took off with my rechargable camera batteries, and any other batteries don't keep thier charge as long, so most of the time, my camera doesn't even want to open up.. *frown*
Here's a seasonal pic from a couple days ago, a spider inbetween my hollyhock.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Grrrrrowwwlll..


If you have a spooky tree post you would like in the Halloween Festival of Trees edition, you can still send it. Writing this festival post was a lot easier than I imagined, and I still have a few days till Halloween. See previous post for info.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Mist creeps in overnight...

" Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!"
~Dexter Kozen

Don't forget to send in your scary tree posts to me soon!
I will be hosting November's Festival, and posting one day early for a Halloween tree festival. See Festival of the Trees for more info, or send your spooky tree related posts to me: silviasalix (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk , by 26 October at the latest, gives me the weekend to do the scary business of gathering all the creepy tree posts together!

Apples

I'm just back from my Mom's!
At home, we've had lovely apples for a month or so now.

Our little apple trees are so heavy with apples this year, their branches are nearly laying on the grass. Yummy apples! And I've never before had as fresh applesauce as this, strait from the trees, into the pot.. with spices and raisins, and eat hot! mmmm...

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Blackberries

Our blackberries are nice and ripe and sweet.

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My camera was out of commission for the past few weeks. My hubby said it was broken. I thought the batteries were bad ones. But he's more technical minded than me, so I believed him. But just a few minutes ago, he really wanted to take a picture, so when he put in some fresh rechargable batteries, it started working again! ...*grumbles* .....

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Samhain Festival of the Trees



Twisted branches reaching towards the moon...
Gaping holes in gnarly trunks...
Misty fog and falling leaves...
Ghostly white trees in moonlit pastures...

These are the trees of Samhain, the end of the summer season.
For Halloween Festival of the Trees I would like to feature eerie, dire and menacing trees. Watch out, for the trees may uproot themselves and follow behind you muttering in treeish speech!


I will be hosting November's Festival. See Festival of the Trees for more info, or send your spooky tree related posts to me: silviasalix (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk , by 26 October at the latest, gives me the weekend to do the scary business of gathering all the creepy tree posts together!

the empty tree

Here's the "empty tree" in its original pic. This picture was taken in the village of Arcen in the Netherlands, right across the street from Clevers, selling the best ice cream in the world! My favorite flavor there is cinnamon. mmmm...