A fun day at The Elegant Farmer

Yesterday, Mom and I took our annual trip to The Elegant Farmer. It was sunny off and on and that worked great for photos. But get this - We wore winter coats! Yeah, the cold weather has officially hit Wisconsin.

So starting with something yummy...

This one is mine. The girl who was dipping these was mid-slice while asking me if I wanted my apple sliced. When I said I didn't, she said in a surprised way "Oh! A bold move!" So that tells you how many people eat these on a stick.

Mmm... reflective caramel!

Mom had hers sliced:

This is the doorway we walked under to get to these treats. I think it could also work as a good doorway to a haunted house, because I felt like we were walking through a big mouth.

While waiting to get through this giant mouth door, I took some pics of the pumpkins next to me.

Check out this stem!

Of course I have to share a pic of the smilin' barn! This is where you can do some shopping for all kinds of food. There was a super long line just to get in and shop, so we didn't do that.

More shopping could be done in a little building next to the barn. This is the area where I took pics of the chainsaw sculptor doing his thing before. He wasn't there yesterday, but I did find these wagons outside the building.

It's cool to look at three different versions of a red wagon. For those of you who like the rusty and crusty:

There was also an old sled out front:

There are some train tracks behind the barn that you guys will probably remember from past years.

This is possibly my favorite picture of the day. It looked like a ghost train coming toward me in the mist. This is about as close as I'm willing to get to an oncoming train.

A little closer...

I can almost hear the rattling.

I took a few photos of... let's call them train accessories because I don't know what the purpose of the next few are. Maybe you guys can fill me in?

When I got closer, I thought this looked like a creature with a big, open mouth. I'm even seeing an eye now!

Some kind of signal?

Coming around the bend...

To the "Elegant Farmer Station"

A few details on the side of the train:

This shape reminds me of a piece of candy.

I took a few pics on the drive there and back. I'm pretty pleased and surprised with how this one turned out, given that I couldn't see what I was taking a photo of. I was just leaning my arm out the window and taking photos of whatever was behind me. See the little horse?

A few trees were changing.

I'm not entirely sure what this is, but we see it every year on the drive. It's some kind of equipment that's been painted to look like a jack-o-lantern. I'm pleased when I can manage to get a pic of it from the car window.

After the Elegant Farmer, we went to Target and Michaels. I've taken a lot of pics at both those stores this season, but there are a couple more things to share.

I hadn't seen this cool arch at the two previous Targets I'd been to this season.

Mom spotted this whole situation. A terrifying new creature! The Gorilla Spider!

Michaels had a pretty clever mini Halloween town on display. This little building reminded me of something out of the show Grimm. This is the "Monster Hunting Supplies" shop. There are a lot of little details to read on this one.

Hehe. This is one of those things that's funny to me and I'm not really sure why. There's just something silly about bloodsucking gnomes that are only about an inch tall. Note the tombstone: "Gnome Sweet Gnome"

The "Symphony of Screams" was in a little bandstand. Cool bat/skull at the top!

Having a glass of "Full Moon Moonshine"

Skeletons in the well!

Sassy cat napkins giving the side-eye to some cat plates:

Those cat napkins might have to be a part of the After Halloween Haul this year...

So there's yesterday! It was a pretty fun day, wandering from place to place. 🍏

Happy Halloween Goodies at Stein's

I've been looking forward to sharing my annual photos of Stein's! I took these pics a couple days ago when it was bright and sunny out. It was also pretty darn cold. A brisk, chilly wind was whipping my hair around in the same way it was whipping this scarecrow's hair around.

Steins had a lot of cute scarecrows out.

They also had a massive selection of these clay jack-o-lanterns.

As you can see, some of them were pretty large! I think they would all look great outdoors, lit with a big candle.

I was calling these the peanut head pumpkins.

And I thought these looked like they had little hats on them. Sort of stem hats.

I was amused by these because it looks like the bottom pumpkin is kind of miffed holding the others up.

I guess you burn a fire in the lower part of this one?

This is probably my favorite:

And one little clay ghost:

Stein's had a pretty good array of gourds. I think I've seen more different gourds in stores this year than usual.

I was so excited to see this one, because I had seen it on a gourd identification web site recently. When I saw it on the web site, I thought it was so cool and unusual. So it was neat to see this in person. This is fittingly named "Peanut Pumpkin".

Seriously, doesn't this pumpkin look like it has a bunch of peanuts glued to it?

These gourds always remind me of swans. I think I'd have to paint an eye on one of these if I bought one.

Just after typing that, I looked at this next picture and saw that this one naturally comes with an eye!

This one was listed as the "Full Moon Pumpkin". How perfect is that?

A very warty gourd:

Stein's had lots of regular pumpkins too. I don't have much to say about those, but here they are. 😆

How cute is this? I had to take my annual photo of one of these planters. I ought to paint a jack-o-lantern face on a planter, since I like this so much. It makes whatever plant is in it look like funky hair.

I love these mini pumpkins with faces. I'm guessing the faces are temporary tattoos? This is my first time seeing some with party hats.

Kitty cat pumpkins with feathery hairdos:

Most of the flowers for sale now are mums. I like the way the light and shadows came out in this pic. It looks like I messed with this because the colors are so vibrant, but I didn't.

I love those little ornamental peppers! These always seem to appear in fall, in with decorative cabbage.

These are like miniature carrots.

I'm not sure if I've seen a purple splotchy one like this before.

Believe it or not, these are ornamental peppers too! They're called "Black Pearl" which I think is a very fitting name. They're so reflective that I can see myself in them. I'm that little vertical line in the middle of each. 😁

So, onto the indoor Halloween decorations. Sometimes I like how the photos of a store display look more than what I saw with my eyes. With some cropping, I can focus in on what I liked best on a shelf. In this case, I'm not sure why these pumpkins look better in photo form. At the store I was thinking "Why are they silver?" and now I'm thinking "These look like some cool brushed metal, industrial pumpkins!"

I think those pumpkins would look neat with a robot display, assuming people make Halloween robot displays. I also think these decorations would look neat with the silver pumpkins:

I was playing around with the items on the shelf, assembling what I thought might look good together. Don't you think this sign, bat, and one of those silver pumpkins would look neat together?

This next sign made me laugh out loud. It's a take off that "Enter as strangers, leave as friends" sort of message, except it says "Enter as strangers, leave if you can". Even now, I'm smiling at that.

Glitter crow!

How cute is this truck, complete with a pumpkin on its door? If you've read my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I love any small, vintage looking truck with anything holiday-themed in the back of it. Pumpkins are of course a favorite truck passenger of mine.

I loved these next two pumpkins! I've never seen pumpkins emitting... dry ice? Fog from a fog machine? Not in person anyway. This is the kind of thing I've seen in a movie, maybe a movie with a super cool Halloween party involved.

The lights inside these pumpkins changed colors.

I found this cat genuinely creepy. I don't know why, really. Maybe because it looks like it's up to no good? Or because it looks like something out of a Pharaoh's tomb if it lost the pumpkin?

How fun are these? Fishnet socks for those who don't want to bother with the fishnet stockings! And how many socks feature a buckle? That actually makes no sense, but I guess the buckle implies a witch's boot?

I like this vintage-inspired cat that was on a jar lid. I think I would like it even better with a body. Or it could look cool as a much larger cat head just sitting on a shelf.

I love this little vintage looking owl too! Like the cat above, I would have liked it even better if it wasn't attached to anything. That's probably why I took a photo of just the owl and not the bowl it was attached to.

I always have to take a pic of a skeleton pirate. This one has a massive earring!

And lastly, here's one of the most tempting things I saw at Stein's. This is one of a series of skeletons on a string of lights. It reminds me of some little party favor at a kid's Halloween party. There's something nostalgic about it.

So there's this year's trip to Stein's! They had some pretty good stuff. As far as I know, Stein's is just a Wisconsin store. So probably most of the people reading this haven't been to one. If anyone outside of Wisconsin has a similar store, I'd be interested in hearing about it!