Its Spring, so that means its allergy season. I have my own allergies to worry about – but this Water Oak in my back yard has it bad.

This tree has allergies and its snotting all over my deck and yard

Look at this stuff:

Water Oak Snot (a.k.a pollen)

My allergies run to another tree group (Hickory, Mulberry) so this isn’t affecting my respiratory system, but it sure is ugly. Each evening after a full day of work, I come home to sweep off several newly snotted inches off the new back deck — (haven’t shown that to you yet). Its a running battle, but if I don’t keep up with it, the Grrr Girls, and their humans, will surely track these darlings into the house, making the mess, not only on the outside, but on the inside.

I think there might be a few more days of evening sweeping. And then we can actually begin to enjoy the new deck without sitting in oak snot. Are you experiencing anything like this in your area? What have you done to combat the annual snot-fest?

So winter wasn’t so terrible, a little snow, but days upon days of 40 degree bleary gray days have made the spring delay in the mid Atlantic. Here’s what the front of the house looks like in mid April .

Upclose Cherry Blossoms – Finally Spring!

Bright Fuchsia Red Bud in Bloom

Spring at designGumbo’s house

Fall is in the air, truly, I’ve heard the temperature in the DC metro are only expected in the 50’s on Sunday – yikes, that pretty cool. What really makes it fall for me, is the month of Halloween and the work of one very special individual. He is a fellow blogger, whose work I admire – it is gorgeously decadent and macabre. He doesn’t know I exist, and what I fan I am of his work, but I will publicly gush now.

Below is the movie he made for last year’s Halloween Haunt, called Swamp Foetus. The tale is simple, but beautifully and wordlessly told. The imagery is stark, glorious in its rot and decay, the witch is amazingly scary and sympathetic. I’m in love with the natural settings, and the crypt (of course). BE ADVISED: This movie is not for everyone, so if you’re even a little spooked about being spooked, I wouldn’t watch. Its probably PG rated, but it is so masterfully creepy, that this could give impressionable ones nightmares. That’s not a bad thing, if you like this sort of nightmare, which I do.

I present, the work of Pumpkin Rot – long may he and his minions reign!

Swamp Foetus, By Pumpkin Rot

And Mr. P.R. — thank you for the gift of your work. You and your work makes it Halloween for me.

I found this on another of my favorite blogs, Pumpkin Rot, today, and just had to borrow the HP Lovecraft text. So, in honor of my favorite holiday:

Forever Autumn by John Poon

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.

For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset’s gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.

A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.

Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral pow’r
Spreads sleep o’er the cosmic throne
And looses the vast unknown.

So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb’s black maw
To shake all the world with awe.

And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.

Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penn’d,
For the hounds of Time to rend.

—H.P. Lovecraft

Carollynn's been Uncle Sam'd and so can you, go to: http://www.census.gov/1940census/sam/, follow the directions to get your own Uncle Sam poster.

…in honor of the 1940 Census Records release this Monday, April 2, 2012.

1940 Census http://www.census.gov/1940census/sam/... Created in celebration of the 1940 Census records release, this app allows you to place your favorite face in our historic 1940 Census poster.Download your picture and share through your favorite social media outlets.