Dear Liza

This year’s Halloween Movies

Dear Liza,

It is monster movie season, as usual. But with it also being a rather tense Election season here in the States, none of our household was feeling the need of adding more terror to the mix. So we have focused on animation, both drawn and stop-motion, for our Halloween entertainment.

I avoided “Hotel Transylvania” for years because it just looked too silly. But it is really fun. Dracula, a widower with a just-come-of-age daughter, has created a “safe space” for monsters, where they can vacation away from villagers with torches and pitchforks. There is also a nice culture clash storyline with a human fellow who wanders in. No gore, no stress, lots of fun animation and puns galore.

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” has been Auntie Bridgett’s favorite her whole life. It is sweet, with Linus faithfully waiting in the pumpkin patch for his unorthodox hero to arrive. Every year, I get irritated at Lucy’s casual cruelty to Linus and Charlie Brown, only to see her redeem herself when she fetches her broken hearted little brother from the Pumpkin Patch and tucks him into bed.

Our choices are not all so lighthearted, though. Frankenweenie features a boy who uses his newly-acquired scientific knowledge to bring his dog back from the dead. This year, because we lost our dear Mousie, it felt sad and a little too close to home.

Paranorman, a stop motion animation created by Laika Studios here in Portland, is also a favorite. A little boy who sees (and is very polite to) ghosts is tasked with keeping the local witch spirit in her place. The crisis brings out the best in some and the worst in others, and the characters are delightfully quirky.

For me, the darkest of all the movies we watch is Coraline, also created by Laika Studios. The girl who wishes for a perfect world with attentive parents and fun activities gets what she asks for, and it takes help from a bossy cat and odd neighbor boy to get her out of it. Neil Gaiman wrote the original story, and it is wonderful, deep, and scary.

This is what we have been entertaining ourselves with these getting-darker evenings, as it gets too chilly for after dinner walks.

Have a wonderful weekend, stay warm, and we’ll chat later.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Finishing Up the Garden Journal

Dear Liza,

Our growing season is over here in the suddenly chilly Northwest. I put the garden to bed last week, and now I have written my last Garden Journal entry.

I made this year’s Journal out of an up-cycled movie list book, re-working the covers with collage. It seems I made fewer entries this year than last… am I running out of things to say about the garden?

I played with a lot of different media this year, anyway.

I watercolored the layout, both as I planned it to be…

and as it turned out.

I used collage when I wanted to show beauty but had no garden…

… and watercolor when I knew exactly what I wanted to show, in this case, how the first zucchini ended up.

I challenged myself to show the complex form of tomato plants.

And, sometimes, I just played with color.

I’ll be out of town for a big chunk of the next gardening season, and I’ll make another Journal when I get back. We’ll see what happens then.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Fall Colors Cranking Up!

Dear Liza,

As our weather gets colder, the trees are getting more serious about colorization.

On every walk around Laurelhurst Park , we see our favorite places changing.

This view from above Firwood Lake takes in the dark tree trunks, bright foliage by the lake, and a very busy squirrel.

And the little lake itself makes everything twice as beautiful.

I love seeing the darkest parts of the park become the lightest, as leaves change and fall and the framework of the trees open up.

And, on our way home, this ginkgo tree shows off an edge of color before going completely yellow.

Enjoy your seasons!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Spooking up the Neighborhood

Dear Liza,

We are in the ramp-up to what Grandpa Nelson calls “decoration season”. It starts with Halloween and flows past Thanksgiving, right into Christmas. Every time we go out for a walk to the market or post office, we take time to “check out the spooks”.

And we are never disappointed! This gigantic Japanese maple sprouts eyes and fangs, looking like Sweetums the muppet.

This skiing skeleton is perched on a vegetable arbor, and does not look very confident.

This “normal sized” demon-dude has a motion detector, and shoots up to ten feet tall when you walk by! It kind of takes your breath away.

At the same house, the smaller creatures are situated so they look even better in harmony. This long shot past the ghoul to the demon is really good decoration planning.

And of course, everyone likes a skeleton selfie!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Laurel and Me

Dear Liza,

I want to share with you some stories about my dear friend and former teaching partner, Laurel. We met in 1988, when we were being interviewed for two Developmental Kindergarten positions in Salinas.

This was going to be my first professional position, but Laurel was making a change in profession, from Physician’s Assistant to teacher. I grew to admire her wealth of knowledge and skills, as well as her “we’re going to get this done” attitude.

We made a perfect partnership, really. She was great at planning, but I was better at ad libbing when the plans went off the rails. We both loved working hard and making our classroom a rich, beautiful learning environment.

The four years we worked together were the most rewarding, exhausting years of my 30 year career. And since then, I have been blessed to have Laurel in my life. She celebrated weddings in the family…

and came around for Mother’s Day brunches at Katie’s house.

We moved to Portland years after she moved to Ashland, and even though we are at opposite ends of the state, we get together occasionally. I had lunch with her, her husband Milton, Auntie Bridgett and Grandpa Nelson just this past weekend!

Laurel is still in my life, and my life is better for it.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Tiny Beauties

Dear Liza,

As well as cleaning up and tucking in my own plot for the winter, I had a few hours of service gardening to do at the Blair Community Garden. This is how the garden is kept in good repair; everyone does a few hours here and there.

My back has been sore from too much lifting of wheelbarrows, so today I sat right down to pull weeds. And, as so often happens, I found beauty I hadn’t expected.

This tiny mushroom was perched in the middle of the path. I didn’t pull it, because it’s not a weed. I just admired it.

These statice flowers are small, and the dew drops on them are even smaller! How pretty is this?

These spurge plants, lovely as they are when sparkled with dew, had to get pulled. They will just get bigger over our warm-ish, wet winter.

After half an hour of weed pulling and picture taking, I was wet, muddy, and ready to head home. I still have a half an hour before my service hours are fulfilled, but not today.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Jacket Season

Dear Liza,

It’s “Take a Jacket” season here in Portland. Though it’s not cold by any stretch of the Imagination, it may rain, probably, sometime during the day… so just take the jacket.

I walked out yesterday to mail all 200 of the “Please Remember to Vote” postcards I had filled out to send to North Carolina voters. Since I can’t send enough money to make a difference, this is how I contribute.

My reward for the walk was seeing how the neighborhood is improved with a bit of rain. Late summer zinnias are refreshed.

Also, skeletons are coming out to play as Halloween approaches. This fella is fishing with his kindergarten skeleton.…

They certainly are a welcoming bunch!

I hope Fall is lovely where you are, too.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Adding More …. And More

Dear Liza,

Once I realized what was wrong with my French map quilt, I got busy putting it right. Every inch on the embroidery is getting re-worked with more color, contrast, and texture.

For example, here is a section of Provence, in what I am now calling the Rough Draft stage. At the time, I thought it was done. But the olive trees are flat, and the lavender is almost invisible.

A few days later, I had added enough contrast that the area was what I wanted it to be… bright, vibrant, and inviting.

Looking further north, I realized that the glorious Loire Valley, the “Garden of France”, was looking very sparse. Too much flat fabric, not enough cultivation going on.

So I drew more lines of crops, and then more between those. Straight rows became waving hills and I got braver with colors. NOW the Loire seems like it’s living up to its potential!

I guess I’ll just keep adding stitches until it seems like I should stop!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Garden Update October 2024

Dear Liza,

Well, this summer’s growing season is over. I went to the garden yesterday and took out the mass of green that were my three tomato plants. They had overwhelmed my upright supports weeks ago, and were sort of leaning on each other.

They still had a few pounds of cherry tomatoes, especially the orange Isis Candy, but none of them were getting riper or sweeter. I picked a bunch as I cut through the tangled stems.

I took down the dahlia plants that were finished blooming and laid them on the trellis to dry. I’ll fetch them on our next dry day.

My busted wheel wagon did a good job of corralling most of the cuttings, including a fine, tall dahlia.

I covered the tomato and lettuce beds with burlap sacks to rest for the winter, and stopped before I was completely worn out.

I even got home with enough energy to put the tomatoes in to simmer for a sauce and put the dahlia in some water. Then it was time for a crossword with Grandpa Nelson.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Crayon Box Season, Again

Dear Liza,

When we first moved to Portland in 2017, I was stunned by the intensity of the fall colors. My amazement hasn’t gone away.

Just walking home from the market is a joy when you pass these lovelies. And I love walking down sidewalks when they become tunnels of ever-changing color.

Doing clean-up at the Blair Community garden is hard work, but I get to visit these zinnias… higher than my head, orange as the sun and very popular with the bees.

Yep, Portland is mighty pretty in the fall… a good way for the trees to let us know they are going to take a nice long nap.

But me, I’m not going anywhere.

Love,

Grandma Judy