Halloween Party!

On October 18 there is Halloween Party. Ms. Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist is the hostess with the mostess. I hope ya'll will come and play. I'm starting early. Tomorrow is the Bayou City Art Festival and we want to get there early -- help to open the gates!!

There are three treats here for you. Thanks for visiting. Happy Halloween!

Snoopy will be telling fortunes.

Mr. Skelly plans to dance to "Putting on the Ritz".

Even the garden fairies are getting into the mood.

(Dover Clip Art For You)



How about some jokes?

What do goblins and ghosts drink when they're hot and thirsty on Halloween?
Ghoul - aid!

What is a Mummie's favorite type of music?
Wrap!!

Where does a ghost go on Saturday night?
Anywhere where he can boo-gie.

(Dover Clip Art For You)



Why did the game warden arrest the ghost?
He didn't have a haunting license.

Where does Count Dracula usually eat his lunch?
At the casketeria.

What happens when a ghost gets lost in the fog?
He is mist.

Why did the ghost go to the bar?
For the boos.

Why did the Vampire read the Wall Street journal?
He heard it had great circulation.

What is a vampires favorite holiday?
Fansgiving!

(Dover Clip Art For You)



JOHN’S PUMPKIN

by Mrs. Archibald

Last spring I found a pumpkin seed,
And thought that I would go
And plant it in a secret place,
That no one else would know,

And watch all summer long to see
It grow, and grow, and grow,
And maybe raise a pumpkin for
A Jack-a-lantern show.

I stuck a stick beside the seed,
And thought that I should shout
One morning when I stooped and saw
The greenest little sprout!
I used to carry water there,
When no one was about,
And every day I’d count to see
How many leaves were out.

Till by and by there came a flower
The color of the sun,
Which withered up, and then I saw
The pumpkin was begun;
But oh! I knew I’d have to wait
So long to have my fun,
Before that small green ball could be
A great big yellow one.

At last, one day, when it had grown
To be the proper size,
Said Aunt Matilda: “John, see here,
I’ll give you a surprise!”
She took me to a pantry shelf,
And there before my eyes,
Was set a dreadful row of half
A dozen pumpkin pies.

Said Aunt Matilda; “John, I found
A pumpkin, high and dry,
Upon a pile of rubbish, down
Behind that worn-out sty!”
O, dear, I didn’t cry, because
I’m quite too big to cry,
But, honestly, I couldn’t eat
A mouthful of the pie.

Happy Halloween!

Natchez, Day 4

We started Day 4 off with a program by Natchez historian Tom Scarborough in the Melrose carriage house. All of the speakers on the tour were excellent.

Melrose Plantation

The fortunes of Pennsylvania born John McMurran began rising soon after his arrival in Natchez in the mid-1820's. Mr. McMurran established a profitable law practice, won election to the state legislature, married into a respected local family, and acquired the first of five plantations. In 1841, McMurran purchased 133 acres of land just outside of Natchez. Over the next eight years, a combination of free and slave labor constructed the estate's mansion and outbuildings.

Back of Main Building

The grounds behind the main house contained the outbuildings housing a kitchen, livestock, carriages, tools and the estate's slaves. The Melrose slaves tended vegetable gardens and fruit trees planted behind each of the large brick dependency buildings.

Outbuilding at Melrose

Melrose was acquired by the National Park Service in 1990. It represents one of the most completely preserved antebellum estates in Natchez with many original furnishings and outbuildings.

After Melrose, it was off to the Natchez City Cemetery and a guided tour by Don Estes, author of The Natchez City Cemetery and Legends of the Natchez City Cemetery. For almost two centuries people of all nations, races, and creeds have been interred in the 100 acre cemetery. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the cemetery, established in 1822 when remains were moved from the burial ground in Memorial Park to the present site, has evolved as an archive of Natchez lore. Tombstone inscriptions embellished by romantic and mysterious tales draw portraits of engaging characters.

This angel may look familiar to you. She is the "Turning Angel" and gave her name to the bestseller by Greg Iles of the same name.

Originally verdant fields and hills overlooking the mighty Mississippi River, the cemetery has been shaped by man into a garden-like park of grassy plots against backdrops of towering oaks and cypress trees draped in Spanish moss; stands of dogwoods, magnolias, hollies, and camellias; rows of azaleas; scatterings of antique roses and crap myrtle-lined lanes. An outdoor museum for many unique art forms - marble statuary, ornamental iron fences and gates, magnificent monuments.

Lunch was on our own and we walked some more in the historic downtown area. Dinner was at the High Cotton Cooking School.

One of the chefs at High Cotton

Dinner was inspired by William Johnson's Diary entry of November 11, 1836. Johnson was a free man of color and owned several barber shops in the Natchez area. Not unlike a beauty salon, the barber shop was a place of gossip. He was one of more than 200 "free people of color" in the town of Natchez during the antebellum era. Johnson was a prolific diarist and kept journals covering sixteen years of his life.

The menu for the evening included: Mint juleps and Grillades Gritmales. Salad was Baby Blue Salad with spiced pecans, goat cheese, tsatumas and champagne vinaigrette on greens. Second course was seared flatiron steak (stake), with black coffee red-eye gravy, crawfish and andouille spoon bread, greens with braised bacon served with cast iron sourdough biscuits with stickerberry butter. Third course sweet potato donuts with vanilla sugar. Everything was delicious.

Natchez, Day 3

We were on the road by 9 a.m. and off to Frogmore Plantation in Louisiana. Frogmore is the home of the Tanner family, who have raised and ginned cotton for 200 years, first with historical gins and today with modern computers. We sat in an 1800's plantation church in the original pews and listened to wonderful music while Lynnette Tanner read from journals and archives.

Lynette Tanner greeted us and was our guide on the tour. She and her husband, Buddy share a common love of agriculture and history. They have saved and moved antebellum buildings to Frogmore in order to tell a complete story about the cotton plantation system.

The Tanner Home

The Cook House

Dog-trot House (overseer's home)

We got to pick cotton. Not an easy thing to do. Hard on the fingers and back. Did you know that CRISCO is made from the oil from the cotton seed? It's even part of the name: seed cotton oil. The visit to Frogmore was our favorite tour. We could have stayed all day. Instead, we were off to Ferriday, Louisiana and made a very quick stop at the Louisiana Delta Music Museum for stories about Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, Aaron Neville, Conway Twitty, Percy Sledge, Jimmy Swaggart, et al. Back to Natchez for lunch in the Carriage House Restaurant on the grounds of Stanton Hall.

Carriage House Restaurant

This is Tinkerbell -- the resident kitty on the Stanton Hall grounds. She is well fed. Chicken was being served.

Carriage House Restaurant

The Carriage House Restaurant is nationally known for its tiny buttered biscuits and Southern fried chicken. You'd be right if you guessed that the fried chicken was the meal of choice for the group.

After lunch we toured Stanton Hall, a Greek Revival mansion, built in 1857 for cotton magnate Frederick Stanton by Natchez architect-builder Thomas Rose. No expense was spared, from Corinthian columns topped with iron capitals to silver door knobs and hinges, Italian marble mantles, gold leaf mirrors and bronze chandeliers.

We had the afternoon and evening off. Good thing. We needed to walk off some of the great food we'd had and investigate historic downtown Natchez. We stopped in two bookstores (of course) and found the yarn shop: Natchez-Needlearts - A Fiber Arts Studio. They had a little of everything: yarns for knitting, crochet, needlepoint, embroidery, cross stitch, crewel and fabric for sewing and quilting. A very colorful place.

Yarns at Natchez Needlearts

Dinner was on our own and we decided we didn't need anymore food! We settled into the hotel and watched baseball.

Natchez, Day Two

Day two in Natchez meant we were up and at 'em early for a brief walk and talk about downtown historic Natchez. Then it was off to the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians for a walking tour and remarks by James Barnett, Director of the Division of Historic Properties.

View of the mounds

The Natchez Indians inhabited what is now southwest Mississippi c. A.D 700-1730, with the culture at its zenith in the mid 1500s. The Grand Village was their main ceremonial center according to historical journals and archaeological evidence.

The 128 acre site features a museum, a reconstructed Natchez Indian house, and three ceremonial mounds. Two of the mounds, the Great Sun's Mound and the Temple Mound, have been excavated and rebuilt to their original sizes and shapes. A third mound, called the Abandoned Mound, has been only partially excavated and will be preserved intact, representing a sort of time capsule from the Natchez Indians' past.

Reconstructed House

After the Grand Village it was off to Glen Mary Plantation, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a private home that has been in one family for generations. We had a picnic lunch here and short tour of the house.

Glen Mary Kitty

Glen Mary

After lunch we took a short ride on the Natchez Trace Parkway to Emerald Mound and Mount Locust.

Split Rail Fence

Mount Locust

Mount Locust is one of the oldest structures still standing in the Natchez area. An increasing number of boatmen known as "Kaintucks" were floating flatboats down the Mississippi river to sell their goods at the markets in Natchez and New Orleans. Without an efficient way to navigate up the Mississippi river, the boatmen walked north on the Natchez Trace to make their way home. A day's walk from Natchez brought the Kaintucks and their gold to Mt. Locust. The growing number of travelers forced the owners to turn their home into a "stand," which is nothing more than a crude inn. Mount Locust was home to five generations of Chamberlains with the last leaving in 1944. The park ranger who met us here is a Chamberlain and told some interesting family stories.

It was at Mount Locust that we talked about the first author on our tour, Eudora Welty. We read her short story "A Worn Path" remarking about Ms. Welty's use of place -- the Trace.

We had some free time before meeting for dinner at the King's Tavern which was built in the 1700s as an inn, a tavern, and a postal stop at the origin of the Natchez Trace. Dinner was delicious (again) -- salad, prime rib, stuffed baked potato, bread pudding. The Tavern resembles the block houses of American frontier days. Its timbers were hewn to size and fitted together with wooden pegs. All rooms have low ceilings and the windows and heavy doors have narrow frames. Several ghost stories are told about King's Tavern.

End of Day Two!

Natchez

We've been gone a few days visiting Natchez, Mississippi. We signed up for a Road Scholar program called "Natchez: Black and White and Read All Over" before Hurricane Ike visited us. The trip was paid for and we needed a break from tearing out dry wall, contractors and insurance agents - so we decided to go for it and we are glad we did. Natchez certainly took us back to a time most only read about. Have to admit, it was nice to come home to reality and our own bed!

We flew into Jackson, Mississippi on Southwest (they had the cheapest fares) and drove down the Natchez Trace to Natchez. We had been on the Trace Parkway before around Nashville and it was as beautiful as we had remembered. Two lane road (no shoulder) with a 50 mph speed limit. Most of the time we felt like we were the only ones on the road -- just us, nature and the wildlife (hawks, vultures, wild turkey and road kill). No billboards. No facilities (restaurants, gas stations).

The Trace was probably a series of hunters' paths that slowly came to form a trail from the Mississippi over the low hills into the valley of the Tennessee. By 1733 the French knew the land well enough to map it and showed an Indian trail running from Natchez to the northeast. By 1785 Ohio River Valley farmers searching for markets had begun floating their crops and products down the rivers to Natchez or New Orleans. Because they sold their flatboats for lumber, returning home meant either riding or walking. The trail from Natchez was the most direct. Started in the late 1930's, the modern Natchez Trace Parkway parallels the old trace. It was named an All-American Road in 1995.

We stopped several times along the Trace. This is the view from the top of Mangum Mound one of several Indian mounds found along the Trace.

Mangum Mound

This is the view across the Mississippi River into Vidalia (no relationship to the marvelous onions), Louisiana from our hotel room (Country Inn and Suites by Carlson).

The *steamboat* is a casino and has no engine.

The Road Scholar group met briefly for introductions and then we were off to Monmouth Plantation for dinner. Monmouth is on 26 landscaped acres and is listed as a National Historic Landmark Circa 1818. We didn't take any pictures because it was dark, but it was eye popping. The food on this trip was out of this world. Here it was hors d'oeuvres before dinner along with two mint juleps (yes, two). Dinner included salad, fresh baked bread, catfish with a crawfish etoufee over greens, chocolate mousse. Unfortunately, (or fortunately), we ate like this everyday. Thus ended day one. Day two tomorrow!