Tonight's Harvest Moon creeps out of the clouds

We're going to take a brief break from the Colorado blog posts, because I had to share some photos of tonight's Harvest Moon!

I'd taken some pics of the moon last night, thinking it was full at that time. Then I read that tonight was the actual Harvest Moon. So I planned to get out there again. It was pretty overcast when I looked out there tonight.

But after waiting maybe a half-hour, I eventually saw something glowing behind the clouds. It looks almost like there's a skull-type face in the clouds, hey? Complete with a few teeth.

I mean, that's pretty eerie. I'm really seeing a face looking down here, complete with lower jaw this time.

I was cheering the moon on, hoping it would make an appearance.

And then, for a brief moment, it did.

Then the clouds glided back over it and it began to rain! So that was some pretty lucky timing.

And what could be more appropriate music for tonight than this?

For those who get this blog in email form, here's a link:

The Frantics - Werewolf - 1960   I love this song!

Boxes...witch this time

From the same old box of marshmellow treats I posted about the other day. Marshmellow treats (rice crispy squares) were once one of my favourites!

Moonlit Night

The Best of August and into September

Hope you all had a nice August! I don't think I checked in to blogger all last month, I've been so busy. So I thought it would be fun to do one of those "best of" the month posts with some photos from August and the first few days of September to show a little of what I've been up to. I'll stick with the generally spooky stuff.

So, the first thing I want to share is a series of photos from our local park. There's a nighttime concert series there in the summer and I brought my camera along to it.

 

That bridge pic is one of the spookier ones I think I took. You can't help thinking something is waiting down there. It's even a little spooky in the daylight because there's so much space under the bridge and plants growing under it. It's a bog type area.

These photos were taken into the woods that surround the park. I was randomly snapping pics while walking, so I wasn't even sure what I got. The camera had better eyesight than I did since I was using the flash. I half expected some animal to be looking back at me when I took a closer look, but I don't see any.

 At the bottom there, a bug?

I can't help thinking there's an animal in these woods, I just can't see it.

A little pond area that looks like a black hole

This is a park's waterfall in the dark. Don't those rocks on the walls behind it look like skulls? I never saw it that way in the daylight.

I also got a bat shot at the park! I know it's blurry, but it's hard for me to capture a bat. So this still feels like a success. They were dipping around so fast that probably the blurriness was caused by me trying to follow it.

Out of the park now... These next photos also felt like a success to me. I often hear crows but rarely see them when I have a camera handy. These crows nicely stayed put for me.

The garden spider was back again this year.

I was happy to get a pic of its web. Like bats and crows, spider webs are hard to catch at just the right time. The little droplets of water were a nice touch too.

Another little garden find was...

... an Ambush Bug! I learned that in the process of writing this blog post. This bug is much smaller than pictured, which is maybe why I never noticed one before.

So, what is an Ambush Bug you ask? Well, they earned their name by sitting and waiting for prey to come by and then ambushing it. I'm guessing they're usually better camouflaged than this one who is on a sunflower. Not that it's holding him back; he's snacking on an ant in this pic.

Also, it turns out that "Ambush Bug" is a comic book character I'd never heard of.

I took some more night shots during August. Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have seen these.

It's pretty dark around here, even with the street lights.

I was calling this "the evil cat eye moon". There's a even a "pupil" for the eye caused by a cloud that was passing by.

Besides walking around in the dark and observing creepy crawlies, the main thing that's been keeping me busy recently is genealogy research. I don't think obsession is too strong a word. I've been having a lot of success with it lately. It helps that our library lets us use Ancestry.com for free now! If anyone wants to talk genealogy, let me know in the comments.

 

A dark, dramatic sky and a new project

This is last night's moon. Aren't the clouds dramatic? They look painted. This was right after the Strawberry Moon on the 20th. What's neat is that this Strawberry Moon fell on the same date as the summer solstice. I read that this is so rare, that the last time it happened was 1948!

The wind and the clouds were moving fast, which made things even more dramatic.

Eventually, the clouds covered the moon entirely which led to my favorite shot of the night:

Doesn't that look just a bit like a jack-o-lantern face?

To my surprise, my camera zoomed to 80x. I thought it would only go to 39x for some reason, so I was thrilled that it kept going and I got this one:

You can really see those craters on the right side of it.

I had been working on a blog post after a recent trip to the museum, but that isn't entirely done yet. Hopefully it will be soon. I photographed some cool and spooky old African artifacts there, but researching them is taking some time. I'd like to be able to actually tell you guys about them!

Besides researching those artifacts, I also haven't been blogging much because most my online time has been going toward other things like playing around with recording my voice and learning about making videos. It has been my goal for a long time now to do some recordings and get them on YouTube and after a few months of research, I'm finally getting around to figuring this all out!

Anyway, I thought I'd check in with a quicker post than what I'd been planning just to make sure I made an appearance! It's been a long time since I've been blogging and I didn't want to drop off the face of the earth.

I'd like to chat with anyone who has some tips or ideas before I go into doing the recordings/videos. I might have some questions for those of you who already have YouTube channels.

I'm thinking right now of an old time radio theme. Something like the spooky old shows and stories from the 40s that I enjoy listening to. Any suggestions of what you might like to hear?

Diecut Bubble 2

Do you have any concerns about the assessed rarity and value of German-made diecuts in your collection? It may be of interest to view a series of earlier entries here that show a number of diecuts (formerly dated 1920s-40s) instead appeared to have been on the market in the 1950s (Halloween in Germany:1955) through the 1960s (Seven Spooks in Narrenfibel) reaching all the way to the mid-1970s  (Dead Skeletons). As a possible reflection on what may be newer perspectives, or just post-holiday doldrums, here are some interesting auction results from January 2016... that are well below typical values suggested by various guides.

Sold for $125 ($25 each) plus auction fees.

Sold for $80 ($27 each) plus auction fees.

Sold for $90 ($30 each) plus auction fees.

Sold for $0 - auction passed

Sold for $125 ($31 each) plus auction fees.

Sold for $125 ($31 each) plus auction fees.

Sold for $200 ($40 each) plus auction fees.

The last photograph is interesting in that the top two diecuts pictured have been presumed of rare 1920-1930 production dates, as mentioned above, yet recently discovered in oversea publications from a much more recent period. These two were for sale in 1965...!? (See pages below from the 1965 Einzinger Narrenfibel catalog).

It will be interesting to see how any of the diecuts fare should buyers resell through a different market. Two were already resold at roughly 3x the amount shown. There is the ongoing question of prices in relation to venue and visibility (an effect mentioned in an earlier entry Diecut Bubble?). For example, below are ten Beistle diecuts (from the same auction above) initially sold at an extremely reasonable purchase price of $275 plus fees.

Sold for $275 ($28 each) plus auction fees.

The same diecuts made their way to another venue (ebay) and were sold separately for a group total of roughly $1250! The larger $1000 portion of that amount was due solely on one very determined buyer. How do we assess the true value of these pieces? First price, second price, or would it fall somewhere in between?

There are more treats in vintage collectibles than are imagined in your Halloween dreams. If you are not keeping track of the all-too numerous items (especially items previously thought to be rare) that hit the market, then this gallery, a fraction of what becomes available, may be of interest:

Follow VINTAGE Halloween Hoards on Pinterest.