It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year....

Ok, I know that old Andy Williams tune in today's title is really supposed to be about Christmas...but for me, Halloween comes to mind when I think of those sweet old lyrics. Because, well, Halloween IS just that for me.

I love Halloween. I live it. I keep Halloween decorations up all year. I cast magic around when I can. I am the undisputed Queen-o-Halloween. Okay, okay. I'm the queen in my own little corner of the world, as evidenced by other Halloween Queens so plentiful here on the web. Indeed, the other Halloween royalty inspire me highly!

So this year, for Halloween, my sweetheart and I decided to do TWO days of Halloweeny fun. Usually, Halloween is a bit somber as I am out on my lonesome because my Other Half is at work....which usually means I get to make mischief all on my own, but that's never quite as fun as having an accomplice.

So this year, a whole two day affair of Tricks and Treats was underway. Note: this means I'll have TWO posts regarding this (trust me, there was A LOT going on!)....and since I've always wanted to go to an old-time farmer's market in the fall, and I love Pennsylvania, we decided to go into Lancaster, PA.

Now, if you've never been there, you are missing out. I already love the artist friends I have made, who are from PA. There is something about the place that makes for some fine artists, I tell you!
Some of my friends:

Jen of Gypsy Mare Studios
Carolee of King of Mice Studios
Michelle of The Studio at Crow Haven Farm
Marie Patterson of Marie Patterson Studio

...and there are probably more of you out there that I don't even know about (in fact, feel free and comment if you are a PA artist, I always love meeting new people!)

Anyhow....so off we went on a two hour drive that covered all sorts of quaint and bucolic scenes, that made my farm-loving heart happy as we whizzed by barns and lovely foliage and horses.

We finally arrived at our destination: in this case, we chose one of the largest farmers markets in the country--GREEN DRAGON MARKET has over 300 stalls, and yes, I didn't disbelieve them once we got there--the whole thing was an endless myriad of amazing food, crafts and tons more. Pennsylvanians, I have envy!

I have never seen anything like this place!! Again, if you have farmy tendencies, you will be in heaven. If you like great bargains on food, you will be running around like some sort of possessed banshees....we definitely were. We were the tacky tourists saying: "wow, I can't believe these LOW prices!" Sadly, I later realized that it was more likely that we lived in a place with highly inflated prices, and we'd come to accept it. One more reason to determinedly keep looking for a life outside of NYC (ahh, but that's a story for another time, kids!)

Anyhow, to say I was wowed by the experience is something else. We had endless fun looking through the various fresh food stalls, antique book stalls ( I managed to find a 1910 published The Secret Garden for only $5! And tons of other books I had no time to look through!), candy shoppes, primitive shoppes, country stalls and SOOOO much more.

It was a treasure trove. We looked, we shopped, we ate too much sugary food and comfort food (I've yet to eat the Shoofly Pie), we talked to Amish and Mennonite folks, we learned new things, we probably scared the locals a little ( I mean, I still have that crazy hair o' mine!), and we had too much fun that could have went wayyyy past the 5 hours(!) we spent there. If it weren't closing time (at 9pm!) we would have kept going....even with 5 hours of fun, we hadn't seen everything there was in this huge and wonderous labyrinth of PA goodness.

OK, so can I say, again to my PA friends: How could you keep this a secret from me???

Having said that, here are a few pictures of our day (click to enlarge):

Of course, since Halloween was around the corner, we had to check out the huge variety of pumpkins at the produce stalls. I have to say, I was fond of the unusual "Speckled Pumpkins"!

I loved these boxes at one of the larger country and prim shoppes!

...and these clocks at another prim shoppe, especially the ones with the star shaped pendulums!

And here is one of the flower and plant stalls. I love the way they painted the pumpkins!

I particularly liked some of the primitive and country decor...like these cloth chickens, cleverly sewn with potato mashers for "feet"!

And here are some of those same types of chicken in pink and other "girlie" colors!

And, of course, more Halloweeny stuff, in primitive style!

There were sweets....

...and more sweets. Heck, we were too busy eating sweets to log in all the amazing sweets being made in various booths.
Candies, Whoopie Pies, fruit pies, cakes, home-churned icecream...how does anyone stay thin?
I'm not EVEN mentioning the homemade Amish Potato salad and Macaroni Salad and various meat specialties!

At the end of all of this, we lugged our 20(!) bags of things back to the car and, as if by magic, the horse that lives on the farm across the street came up to the clearing, and stood long enough to take a picture.

I say it's magical because HE came up as we came up to our car as if he wanted to meet us for the picture....


And, he literally stood long enough for me to take the picture.

Here he turns to give us his "good side"....
...and stands for us to take the photo!

The minute I snapped the shot, he turned and walked back over the hill!

And, as if that weren't magic enough--I wanted to show you what we got for roughly $100 for our trip. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to get HALF of this for that amount here in New York. We loaded up our acquisitions on our kitchen table to demonstrate the amazing things you can find at amazing prices in PA:

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. The whole table is full of all sorts of things...I will try to describe here (CLOCKWISE): Vintage porcelain pie plate with vintage rolling pin, two large tubs of fresh spinach sitting on top of a vintage scale (which I needed for soapmaking and baking), 4 yellow peppers, one stalk broccoli, 10 sweet potatoes, one blueberry pie, one chocolate chip Whoopie Pie, one package chocolate wafers, 2 zucchini, two yellow squash, 10 apples, 10 pears, a dozen oranges, half a dozen jugs Turkey Hill beverages (which we found at one of the various local Turkey Hill stores--don't ask, my sweety has some sort of Turkey Hill fixation), another broccoli stalk----MIDDLE, CLOCKWISE: 3 older books, including The Secret Garden children's book from 1910, vintage copper mold with grape design, 2 pounds of seedless grapes.

Trust me, this would cost over $250 here in New York! So how do I move to Pennsylvania, again?

So....that was our Friday. Up next, Halloween in downtown New York City!