Halloween at Hardin Ridge....Pumpkins Galore!!!!!

16 yrs ago a family decided that Dad needed something to do, he was terribly bored and he liked to work with his hands soooo.......what they come up with was pumpkin carving.  Harold and Nancy gathered all the patterns they could find, searched the internet, and drew some by hand.  Their daughter Caitie, had her birthday at that time of year also so they had pumpkin carving at her party.  They loved to camp and so they would bring a couple of pumpkins with them to carve and then set them out on their site. Well 2 turned to 4, 4 turned into 6 then 8.....you get the picture. Today their families, friends, camp ground hosts, guests in the park, carved a whopping 107 pumpkins!!!!!  After they had been carving pumpkins for a while something new and exciting happened to them, they became Christians. That is when they decided to incorporate the message of Christianity into the Halloween season as it can be depicted as an evil holiday.  They also pass out candy to the children, with a story about when you become a Christian.  It is told from a Dad's perspective to his children.
     "God picks each one of us out of the patch and He chooses us to be His very own. Next, he cleans us from the inside out, scooping all the yucky stuff out of our hearts--the sin--the bad things we do or say. After that he puts a great big smile on our face and His light shines in our hearts for everyone to see His love in us!" That is such a cool analagy, I have never thought of it that way before.
 I had heard there was a group of them carving so I mosied on over to their site this am to get a picture of them carving. They were all sitting around the fire chatting as they worked, even the young children were carving as there are different levels of difficulty in the patterns. It was such a neat scene, different ages doing the same activity in this beautiful setting by the open fire.

Friends and family gather on Nancy and Harold's camp site to begin their carving. They all look so intense don't they?

Wonder what they do with all the ''yucky'' stuff? I thought they were going to roast them but learned today that she was going to give them to a friend who raises chickens. The seeds act as a natural wormer. I sure didn't know that. We always feed our chickens the seed and pulp but didn't know it was good for them.

This is one of the more intricate designs. It is the Lord's supper. I heard it took Caitie 2 hours to do this. I personally would have pulled out my hair.  Super patience. Wow!!!

They punch holes in the pumpkin from a pattern and then connect the dots with a black marker. They also brush flour over the holes and it lights up the holes in white. Neat trick.

Harold is now starting to put them in line. They don't use candles they light them up with electric lights. They would go through a bunch of candles wouldn't they????

Caitie insisted the blogger be photographed so she grabbed my camera and took a picture of me carving. We won't disclose which one I did it was not very good at all.

Art decided to carve one too.  I will point his out in the photos.

Harold carved Davy Jones----the pirate.  I also thought from the group the Monkeys too ha ha:)

Here is a deer head before the lighting.....

And.......after being lite up. Isn't it amazing!

This is stained glass with the cross. This was a free hand pattern drawn by a friend of theirs.

I love the placement of these two.  Looking at the other pumpkin like ''what are you supposed to be?"

They are almost all carved now and getting ready to be lit for the campers to see.

The detail in these carvings was just fabulous!

This one was extra special. It is a pumpkin in a pumpkin, to give it a 3D feature.  Just such talent Wow!

Obviously this fella didn't eat his trick or treat candy.  :)  Wish I had that will power.

What amazed me was how they could carve such tiny details and not have it fall apart. I do know they occasionally have to use tooth picks to hold a piece up.

"Look out behind you!"

Look at the teeth in this one. They look like they are in all different places in the mouth.

See, Jesus loves everyone!

Remember the pumpkin in the above photo that Caitie had just drawn the pattern on. This is it all lit up and completed. This is the Lord's Supper.  It took her 2 hours I heard.

Can you believe THIS one!  John Wayne would be proud.  The facial features are just unbelievable. 

I believe the pumpkin on the right is a little concerned with all that fire so close. The cat just looks like a picture. Now how can that be a pumpkin?  Just amazing!!!

You think this wolf is the one that tormented the "Three Little Pigs?"

When I saw this was Mt. Rushmore I did a double take.  And the picture of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus is just beautiful. 

See Mario in the middle?  Art's is the one right about him. He says his as the ugliest. Nah, it is not!

  

I know Mickey (asst. manager) did the three ghost coming out of the pot.

This one had to be one of my favorites because it looks like the lion is coming "OUT" from behind  the pumpkin.  That is incredible.!!!!

Look at the incredible detail in that tiger. So appropriate, it being orange and all.

These three ladies are calling them selves the Halloween Queens. We have the Pumpkin People so they wanted a name too. They decorated their site on Holland really pretty. The lights made such an eerie glow when you walked into it.

They had pumpkins too but theirs was already carved and they had them hanging up in a tree :)

This was their campsite. They had lights all around the site, on their camper, and a buried skeleton coming up out of the ground.  I know it took a long time to do, it look very very nice.

This is my sunset pumpkin. I looked at it for along time because it reminded me of something. Then it hit me a sunset.  Look at that beautiful orange glow, and the different colors of yellow, with the bright white being the sun.  And carving the Happy Halloween must have been nerve wracking!!!

Here was the last pumpkin. 

I have a bunch of pictures to still share from Hardin Ridge and our days off. I had tried to blog the last couple of days but couldn't down load any pictures.....URRR! We are leaving to go home Tuesday morning and I will continue to blog about being here until my pictures I took are finished. Then we will be at Turkey Run State Park for Halloween and will have lots of pictures from there too. We have been very busy getting the park closed and our stuff packed up so it has been hard to get any blogging done. I hope you enjoyed the Halloween pumpkins and story as much as we did. Just wonderful people, they made a huge buffet of soups and desserts on Sat. night and insisted the staff all go first.  It was delicious too, great carvers and great cooks and best of all we now have some more new friends.

                           So from Hardin Ridge we Send Hugs and Best Wishes.

Little Cabin in the Woods

  I took so many pictures on our days off that I just couldn't get them in on the two blogs. Partly because Blogger was giving me fits on loading photos Wed night. I really don't have alot to say this evening. Just doing pictures and beginning to get things ready to leave. We are tentatively leaving on Tues. We are really missing our girls and our grand daughter Meredith. I hear her on the phone and my heart just breaks. Well before I start crying here are the pictures I wanted to share tonight.  I posted a picture of the log cabin that Art and I found.  It was a model home and you would have to buy a lot to put it on.  We have always wanted a log home. And at this time in our lives we want it small. Living in the RV is just our size. I have never liked big houses and now I dislike them even more. I don't want to spend my life cleaning I want to get out and live. They had a little furniture but not much.  Here is the kitchen. They had a pantry/closet under the stairway that was a good size.

Not much cabinet space but I could get used to it. There isn't much in the fifth wheel too.

This is an extra bed in the loft area. There was a bedroom downstairs but I didn't get a picture of it. Sorry :(

Taken from the loft area into the living room. It is nice and bright I love that.

Looking down the stairs. There were 2  doors one in the kitchen too.

You can see the pantry door and the second bedroom. The latches on the doors were very creative.

I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the bathroom. It was small but decorated really cute. It had a shower/tub combo. Here is the house again, what a cute front porch.

I found this little turtle in Nashville yesterday.  I just had to bring this one home.  Isn't he a cutie!!!

                              So From Hardin Ridge we send hugs and best wishes.

Day 2 Off and More Photos...

I took so many pictures yesterday that I couldn't get them all in one blog. So I am doing another one today of remaining pictures.  I hope I don't have as many problems as I did last night. Sheesh!!  Some of the pictures didn't get on the blog, because Blogger decided to delete them. How frustrating! And the font kept changing from one size to another, then Bold then not bold. If it starts that tonight I am quitting and start again tomorrow.  Ok wish me luck.........

I was shocked when I saw this rose still so pretty after all the cold weather.  These bushes were at the West Baden Springs hotel in French Lick.  Even the bud is pretty...reminds me of spring. FOCUS on that when it is snowing. :)

This is Patoka Lake. I was 'determined' to get this one on the blog tonight as....I loaded it FIVE times last night and it kept getting deleted. I like it because of the little white spot in the middle. A boat, one lonely boat, isn't he lucky?  Plus, this lake is soooooo blue.

At Patoka they have incredible bike trails. This picture really shows the contrast between the road and the trails. This must have cost  a ton of money to put these in. And they went trough this whole huge park.

Guess what they Patoka and Hardin Ridge have in common. No they are not both State Parks. Hardin Ridge is a National Forest. Yes, they both have trees, yes they both have camping sites, yes they both have volunteers, yes they both have turtles, and beautiful lakes.....And yes they both have.....................................................................................DEER!

"Hey, I've heard over the leaf vine that you like to take pictures of us. Ok shoot way."

"This is my pull leaf off and eat it pose."

"This is my sniff the air pose."

"This is you've got enough and I'm getting ready to run pose."

                                                  Then poof she was gone!!!

 I get it now. THIS is where they come up with the saying ''Bird Legs" They have Great Blue Herons everywhere on this lake. This guy would fly, land, fly, land, ........ I kept trying to get him in flight, I did but it isn't that good. But, he landed in this tree and I got that!!

"Help! I don't know how to land in a tree!"

"Phew! I made it.  Did anybody see me???"

I know this is not the greatest picture but I love the wings in flight.  See the 'Blue' in the Heron can't you?

This is a little house we found that we would LOVE to buy.  "Log" in tomorrow to see the inside. :)

                              So From Hardin Ridge we send hugs and best wishes.

Our Day Off and Patoka Lake

Today was one of our days off. We get 2 days off, tomorrow we are off too. We wanted to go see some other parks since we are so close to some of them. That took us farther south, and the leaves were even prettier. We left the park around 10:00 and we took the gravel road, which is right beside the park. That is the road that I got the pair of turkeys on a few blogs ago. We didn't see any 'wild' animals on the road today but there is a farm that has cows and goats. The goats were laying out on a hill in the sun. Oh you could tell they were enjoying the heat of the sun in this chilly weather. This is a Nubian, a milk goat. These are the same kind we used to raise. They have a sweet disposition and give lots of milk. This one looked very much like one we had called Sweetie Pie. She had twin babies one year, a boy and girl. Our girls had so much fun playing with the baby goats (kids) when they were little, as they would run and jump and twist. And they loved to feed them on the bottle too.

Looks like she is chewing her cud. They have four stomachs like a cow.

This pond is amazing with all the colors. We passed it on our way down south. I just LOVE the way the colors are reflected in the water from the trees.

I think the water looks like glass it was so still.

There are no words to say about this photo....except WOW!

Even though thistles are not a pretty plant they sure have neat looking flowers. This was growing a long a road we took down to a boat ramp. This little bee was so busy sticking his little head in and out of the flower. He didn't mind me being so close....he was a ''busy bee" :)

 Art has always wanted to go down to French Lick In. to see the casino and this hotel. This is the West Baden Springs. It was built in 1902 and the Atrium spans 200 feet. I am amazed that they could build something of this magnitude in the 1900's.  It reminded me of something you would see in a movie, about a king and his harem. There were no camels tied up outside but lots of trolley cars to transport guests around the resort. 

If you are 55 and over you can stay for a measly $204 a night with a TWO night minimum. Soo...how many nights would you like??

The rooms look out onto the lobby.
Some have balconies you can sit on. Me? I'd rather look into the forest and see the deer.

This is the Atrium. It looks like an enormous ceiling fan. I did like how the sky was visible.

Now 'this' is more like it. This is Patoka Lake. Look at those trees!!

The entrance to the park. 

Just look at this lake how beautiful and blue it is. This was behind a campsite in the park. There was a trail you could hike down to the lake. And yes, we walked it...wouldn't you? Look at that view!

This is Great Blue Heron (thanks Judy). He was so regal walking around the lake. He was very cautious of us and would stretch his neck out and look.  I know it is already long enough, but he would go straight out front. He was so much fun to watch. I wanted him to catch a fish but he didn't too nervous I suppose.

Two turtles in two days, I can't believe it! We were leaving the campground and on the road there went this little guy. I believe the road was very warm and he was soaking up the heat. He sure didn't know the danger he was in. Four cars passed him while we were turning around....whew he didn't get hit.

Look at that face. He wasn't as trusting as the older one yesterday. This one was a young one born this year I suppose. He never did come out of his shell, so I just sat him on the grass and got down on his level. I'm sure he is thinking what is she doing? I am NOT about to come out....just sit there all day if you like. :) 

I sure hope you like turtles because here are 17 for you to look at. And....there were more on farther  down the log. They were sure enjoying the sun. This was taken on Patoka Lake too.  I sure hit the jack pot with turtles today.

Turtles weren't the only creatures enjoying the log and sunshine.  This Heron blended in so well I almost missed him. 

Effie says, "I am sick of this cold weather. But guess I can't complain too much I am under this warm soft blanket."

The blog was giving me all kinds of problems tonight. The font is different sizes, and when I clicked on a picture it deleted it....URRRRRR I could have screamed but I got it done.......           So from Hardin Ridge we send hugs and best wishes.