Ghoulish Games for Friday Fun

Halloween lovers remain kids at heart, long after our childhoods have passed. We enjoy Halloween for all its playful qualities. And since we are never too old to have a little fun....how about a couple of 'Ghoulish Games' for Friday fun? I have a 'Haunted Halloween Crossword Puzzle' and a 'Most BeWitching Maze' for your juvenile amusement today. Granted, these are probably way too easy for most of you Halloween Homies....but still it's fun to take a little break and play every now and again, don't you think? And even if you are too smart for them....you may have kids, grand kids or nephews and nieces who might enjoy them! So if you click on the image, it should be large enough to copy, save and even print out at a smaller size. (I won't post the answers to the crossword puzzle unless anyone really needs them though.)
Enjoy, and have a pleasant and playful Autumn Weekend! :o)
BeWitching Maze Art ©2010 Wendy A.
Halloween Crossword Puzzle © Unknown

Photos - Sayonara Summer Game Results

Okay fine...you guys are no fun at all! Apparently Jeanne and Becca are the only other fun people around here who like to play games. So I'll go ahead and post the pics so that they will know how very close they both were with their guesses. I'm impressed by your Garden Knowledge ladies! :o) This summer we had lots of things growing and visiting our yard. I had been taking photos to share, but never got around to it. So I decided to just put them all in one post...hence the Friday the 13th game. So here are the answers and the full sized images so you can see each thing in its entirety. (You can click on the images to see them larger.)

1. Is a Turtle. The snippet was of his turtle shell.

2. Are Phlox Flowers. Well I call them flowers...some folks say they are merely weeds. But anything that is that pretty and colorful shall be deemed a flower in my yard. Actually they were right outside my yard behind the fence, but they still count.

3. Is a Dandelion...again outside the fence. As much as I love to blow on Dandelions and make wishes....we forbid them to grow directly in our yard.4. Is a Butterfly! This one was too easy!5. Is actually a Blossom from our Nectarine Tree. This tree is incredible. In the spring it is covered with gorgeous pastel pink and white blossoms that eventually turn into yummy nectarines. Unfortunately we never get to eat very many of them because the squirrels are a nuisance and they get them before they are ripe. And most of the time they won't even eat the whole fruit, they'll just come take one big honkin' bite out of an otherwise perfectly respectable nectarine, thereby ruining it for the rest of us. I have a majorly dysfunctional love/hate relationship with the squirrels in my yard.6. Is a Baby Fig. We have a really big Fig Tree and this is a shot of the Figs when they are young...before they turn all purple, plump and edible. Sadly, none of us really eat Figs, so it's just another food source for the squirrels.7. This is indeed a Mushroom. And although it looks fairly big in this photo, it was actually quite small. the top was probably no bigger than a nickel, so I used a macro lens.8. Ha...no those are NOT Spider Legs! Are ya'll crazy? Do you really think I'm going to get close enough to a spider to shoot his legs?! I don't want ANY photos of spiders thank you very much. A Spiderweb yes, even one with a small spinner type spider maybe...but NO regular spiders with long legs. Besides, this was way better...it was a really lovely and Colorful Dragonfly on the Nectarine tree.9. Interestingly, someone on my FB page guessed this as a tomato too. And I guess it does sort of look like one. But it is in fact, one of our newest acquisitions...my Persimmon Tree. And this is one of the only 3 Persimmon Fruits still hanging on to life. I have a BIG dream/goal for this tree. For if all goes right over the next few years...I will eventually have a real live 'Halloween Tree' in the back corner of my yard. If you want to see an incredible thing of Halloween-esque beauty, check out this old post about the Persimmon (aka The Real Halloween Tree).10. This is a Pumpkin Flower. I figured anyone currently trying to grow their own pumpkins would surely recognize this. And it's a good thing I photographed it....because it will be the only proof that a pumpkin plant ever took up residence in my yard after next weekend. Yes, these magical pumpkins sprung up this year from seeds that were dropped in our yard by party goers at our Annual Pumpkin Carving Party 2 YEARS AGO! But the pumpkin vine has taken over, grown out of control and has done nothing but tease and taunt us with the hopes of a baby pumpkin, only to have them dry up and fall off a few days later. I'M DONE WITH YOU Pumpkin Plant! I want my yard back!11. This is the most unusual thing I've seen in a long time. Well next to #12, which I've already blogged about previously. This is a 'Leaf Bug'. They come in a variety of shapes that mimic leaves. (Check more of them out here.) If you didn't look closely, you'd never recognize it as a bug at all....and that's the magic of this creature. His leaf disguise is his protection. I find them rather fascinating. Well actually, I never would have found him at all if the hubby hadn't called me out to the yard and pointed him out. I would have just thought it to be another leaf. Which is EXACTLY the point of this critter now isn't it?! Do you see his beady lil' eyes at the bottom, just staring at you? So freaky!12. This is 'Blade'! You may remember our pet Blade, the Giant Man-Eating Grasshopper from this earlier post. Isn't he colorful? Colorful and BIG! He is one Big Bad Grasshopper, and I'm happy to report that he is still alive and living comfortably in a 10 gallon fish tank on our back patio. But my gosh, he is the most BORING pet I've EVER had. In fact, I'm ready to release him back into the wilderness from which he came. So I think I'm going to tear a small hole in the screen on top, and tell my son that he chewed the hole himself and got away. Shhhh....13. And yes, this is a Baby Pumpkin and sadly it is as big as any of them have grown. I read that we may be having a pollination problem. Apparently we have some lazy ass bees around here who aren't earning their keep. And to correct the problem, we need to get out there with Q-tips and help our Pumpkin Flowers 'do the deed' by swabbing the male flower with the Q-tip and then 'spreading the love' over to the female flower. Well FORGET ABOUT IT! I am drawing the line at this. That's just not right! They need to take care of their own 'business'. That pumpkin vine is OUTTA HERE! Hope everyone has had a great weekend!All Images © 2004-2010 Wendy A. (All Rights Reserved)

Friday the 13th "Sayonara Summer" Game

TGIF!! Yay...it's Friday the 13th, and August is almost half over, which means September won't be far behind and October is lingering ominously in the shadows. Soon enough we'll be entering the dark half of the year. So before it gets too late, I wanted to do a summer post. A 'See ya and Good Riddance Summer' kind of post. And as it turns out, I'm in the mood for a little "Friday the 13th" fun and games to start the weekend. So what do you say...do you wanna play a game? A little 'Sayonara Summer Fun'?

Oh I promise it won't be too hard. This is just a little test to see how astute you are to details and how brushed up you are on your gardening. I have a series of photographs of things I snapped in my yard this late Spring/Summer. And today I am posting only a super macro snippet of the big picture for each item. How many items you ask...well 13 of course! And your mission, should you choose to accept it....is to determine just what exactly those snippets are photos of. I'm sure you'll recognize some right off the bat. Others may be more ambiguous. And perhaps you are a 'Backyard Garden Sherlock Holmes', and you'll merely scoff at my lame attempt to trick you.

Remember the movie, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"? Well consider yourselves shrunken down really small as you look at these images and try to imagine what you might be looking at if this small section was all that you could see of a MUCH larger object. Then post your guesses in your reply. If you are of the 'Cheater Pants' variety, then of course you can look and see if anyone else has figured it out and just copy their answers....but then what fun would that be? So I challenge you to figure them out for yourself before commenting, and then refrain from reading what anyone else guessed until after you've made your post. You can click on the images to see them larger. And for ease of referencing the photos, just consider the images numbered 1-13 in the order they are posted. (ie. the first image is #1, the second image #2 and so forth on down).

I had contemplated making this a contest. But I wanted to see how astute you all are first, so I'll know whether I have to step it up and make it more difficult, or take it down a notch and make it easier next time. I'm going to do Fall Items next time around and perhaps I'll make that one into a contest for some Halloween goodies. This one will just be for some end of summer Friday the 13th fun. A warm up, if you will. Then either tomorrow (Sat.) or (Sun.) I will post the answers, along with the full sized images of these 13 magical things that I encountered in my yard this Spring/Summer so that you can see just how clever you really are. Good Luck and Happy Friday the 13th everyone! :o)

Halloween Drinks on Me

Some of you may remember a post I made not that long ago about a game I was playing over on Facebook called 'Fish World'. And how I was suckered into it with the promise of being able to create a Hallowe'en themed fish tank. Well over the month of October, there were many other seasonal applications that sprouted up in Facebook world as well, that celebrated the Hallowe'en spirit. And one such application was called 'Drinks on Me'!
The premise of the application is to get users to accept the application, whereby friends can send them drinks and vise-versa. And it comes complete with a 'Drunk Meter' that measures your sobriety as you virtually consume the drinks. All this because....apparently, we are anti-social now, and prefer to guzzle down pretend virtual drinks with cyber-strangers rather than actually making the effort to go out in our real lives and have drinks with real flesh and blood friends....ha! Of course I couldn't resist sending and consuming the following drinks for no other reason than the fact that they were Hallowe'en themed drinks.

So I thought I'd share them with those of you who do not waste your precious lives by playing these mind numbing games. As surely you must be dying to know what you've been missing...ha! I personally thought the drinks were quite cute and had great names as well. I'm such a sucker for ANYTHING HALLOWE'EN! So a round of 'Spooky Juice' and 'Witch's Brew' for you all from me! :o)

Halloween In My Fish Tank

So what does a not-so-wicked Witch do in her spare time, when she's not conjuring up potions and putting hexes on people? She plays mindless games on Facebook, that's what! I loathe to admit it, because in general I am NOT a video playing kind of girl. Outside of I-Spy games on the computer, I typically do not waste my time watching TV or playing video games. BUT...I found a game on Facebook that I couldn't resist called Fish World.

My niece suckered me in with the promise that I could have a Hallowe'en Fish Tank. She knows me so well...I accepted the bait and I was hooked. I have now worked diligently for the last week or two, raising and selling fish until I could completely bling out my fish tank with a Halloween theme. I had to earn enough money to get the Full Moon Haunted House background. Then of course I had to have the Witch, the Ghost, the Skeleton, the Cauldron, the Tombstone, the Black Cat and the Spiderweb. I added in a Spooky Tree and some Fall leaves and it is now complete.

But what makes the theme even more fun, is that you can buy Hallowe'en Fish to go in it. Yep...there are Pumpkin Fish, Skeleton Fish, Mummy Fish and a scary looking Purple Sawtooth Fish! Now how stinkin' cool is that! If you click on my photo to enlarge it, you can get a glimpse of those fish in different areas. Some are still babies and some are larger. But if any of you do the Facebook thing....consider gettting yourself a tank in Fish World and decking it out for the upcoming holiday.

Counting Down the Days!

Looks like Pottery Barn has their Hallowe'en Goods on-line now. I just LOVE the Pottery Barn, but many times I think they are just way overpriced. Although admittedly, a few years back, I shelled out a pretty penny for this huge felt Hallowe'en Advent Calendar you see to the left! I begged them to give me the display because there were no more in the store. It's so big I have to hang it on a screen room divider. But it's one of my favorite things, and the kids love it too. They eagerly check the pocket each day for a treat before school. However my children are sneaky lil' goblins, so I had to resort to just filling one pocket a night, lest they go peeking ahead into the other pockets and ruining all the fun. But they look forward to that Calendar all year long even though it doesn't yield big presents. Just counting down the days with anticipation is all the fun they need to make it an annual tradition at Ravenwood Manor aka Wendy's place!

This year Pottery Barn has a new version of their popular Hallowe'en Advent Calendar available, as well as a 3D Advent Haunted House which is pretty dang cute. There are also some printable paper styles available on-line and if you are of the DIY bent, you can make the clever one below that is made from paper mache boxes and magnets to put on your fridge! I may have to give that one a try just for kicks. Visit the Just a Girl blog for a tutorial if you're interested, and for those of you with younger kids, consider adding the Halloween Advent Calendar to your holiday tradition. Heck I will still use it even after my kids have long since moved away. I'll make the hubby fill it with goodies for ME! :o)