LOOOOOONG-time fans of the City of Nouns might just remember Grill Hobstein. Yesterday, just after I’d returned from walking Gregory to school, he called my cell. “Mommy,” he said with remorse in his voice, “I forgot my lunch.” So, off I went, lunchbag in hand and camera around my neck. The picture above shows downtown Metuchen in the distance. You can tell where “downtown” is by the puff of white trees. That puff of white trees is better-known in MY house as “Grill Hobstein.”

You see, way back in ancient times when Gregory was 3, he would mumble things, and one time he mumbled “Grill Hobstein” over and over and over until we finally figured out that he was trying to tell us that something smelled yucky.

What was it that smelled so bad it needed its own name?

A-HA! Blossoming pear trees! Ew! Grill Hobstein, dude!

Been to downtown Metuchen this week? The pear trees are beautiful, no? At the same time, you might be wondering, “What is that smell? Did somebody leave rotten fish out somewhere?”

No rotten fish. It’s just Grill Hobstein. Bradford pears, aristocrat pears, ornamental flowering pears in blossom smell yucky. Yet another reason to plant anything else.

What do you do when you’ve locked yourself out of the house? TAKE PICTURES!

Above: 2 o’clock moon through my October Glory red maple.

I often think of winter as boring because of the bare trees.

Above: two red maples. Foreground: my Red Sunset red maple.

Because looking up at sticks in the sky just gets kind of old after a while. But I like these pictures so much, maybe I’ll rethink that!

Above: Foreground: I have no idea what kind of bush this is. Background: my neighbor’s red maple.

Interesting — there is absolutely no wind today. Check out how my purple leaf plum is growing in the direction of the west. I’m not sure why it’s doing that. Could be reaching for the most sun exposure, or perhaps this is the direction of the prevailing wind and the tree’s just used to flowing that way. (I think the prevailing wind comes from the northwest though, so that really doesn’t make much sense. I’m betting the tree’s reaching for sun.)

Aristocrat pear bud this season. Yes, the same one from this famous little “year in the life” slide show of a few years ago.
(That slide show takes a minute or so to load, but it’s SO worth the wait.)

Two days after a little snowstorm, Gregory wishes for more, and is thankful I’ve locked us out of the house so that he can play in the playground at school. Note to self: keep spare key in pocket.

For the best Halloween photographs, here are some easy do-it-yourself ideas.

PHOTO TIP #1 — First, you need an almost-13-year-old boy willing to do all the decorating on a budget. I gave Bradley $40 and one rule: “No burning down the house.”

He pocketed most of the money, and spent a good part of Sunday digging things out of the basement making his own decorations. In case you can’t read the tombstone he made out of plywood and Sharpies, it reads:

R.I.P

Rosalind Rigby

She left shamefully.

But she did save
a bunch of money
by switching
to Geico.



(That kid cracks me up.)



He hung white flowy ghosts from the linden tree. He got those from the basement, originally made out of white kitchen trash bags by me the year he turned 7. (For those of you who don’t know, Bradley will turn 13 this year — my little monster, Halloween baby born in Room 13 — is now, as of tomorrow, officially a teenage werewolf.) Those flood-resistant trash-bag ghosts have lasted quite a while, don’t you think?



Children throughout the neighborhood anxiously await the annual appearance of Elvira along the railing above our garage. Here’s where Bradley spent his money: $2.99 on a string of purple lights.

PHOTO TIP #2 — This is a cool picture partly because of the COMPOSITION of it. Graphically speaking, it has lots of angles and varying textures, as well as interesting contrast and shallow depth-of-field. I waited all day to get this picture, waiting for the light to give me a bit of an eery darkness and a glow to the trees. Tree fans, note the background of the shot. The tall yellow one is the black cherry tree behind our shed. It’ll be bare soon. Once the leaves start changing on that tree, they don’t hang on very long. The shorter green one is one of the Bradford pears next to the backyard swing. That one will still have leaves in December. Ugh. I hate raking when it’s 30 degrees out.



This happy ghost has been in our family longer than Gregory has!



The “dancing ghosts” have haunted our yard (and basement) for nearly a decade.



This scrapbook photo from 1999 shows the ghosts the first year they magically appeared underneath the linden tree. This year, Bradley banished them to what he called the “family friendly” side yard and underneath the Aristocrat pear.

Happy, dancing ghosts live in the “family friendly” area, he says, making room for his sinister, oozing graves and bleeding storm troopers that haunt the main yard. (There’s almost always a Star Wars reference in Bradley posts, ever noticed that? Wait a minute: aren’t storm troopers robots or something? Blood? I’m SO Star-Wars-challenged.)

PHOTO TIP #3 — It’s supposed to be a nice day here this Halloween. Take pictures in the early morning, when the sun is throwing long dark shadows and casting a deep orange glow, or in the late afternoon. When taking photographs of groups of children, make sure they stand really close together. Make monster faces and snorting noises. (Remember, it’s about the MOMENT. We like natural smiles, not cheese smiles.) Take a look at the background of the picture. Shoot for something pretty, like a clump of colorful mums, or some glowing jack-o-lanterns. Turn the flash OFF, and move the children so that the sun is not directly in their eyes, ideally so that it’s shining on roughly two-thirds of their faces. If half of one cheek is in shadow, your picture will have interesting contrasts. Think of the great artists and how they use light in painting. Click here for an example and a discussion of “Rembrandt Light.”

Ever watch Grey’s Anatomy? Rembrandt light ALL OVER THE PLACE! (I love that show.)

If your point-and-shoot camera has a “portrait” setting, set it on that. If it has any zoom factor at all, stand as far away as you can and zoom all the way in. This just might give your picture that nice shallow depth-of-field that my clients LOVE in my pictures.

Or, as an alternative, you can find me in my neighborhood. I’ll be in my mamarazzi costume (mom with a big camera) following all the neighborhood children and enjoying every minute of the family fun of trick-or-treating in my sweet New Jersey town.

Oh, and if you stop by my house, don’t be afraid of Elvira. She’s perfectly happy in her perch. And that storm trooper by the door? He’ll be your candy man. Probably a good idea to leave something in the bowl. Something milk chocolate. For Elvira.



Till next time,

Peace,
jules

Ornamental pear trees, like this Aristocrat Pear, are not recommended as a good shade tree to plant for many reasons. I won’t go into all the reasons in this post, but one of the reasons has always been that these trees do not provide food for wildlife.

That’s a bunch of bunk! I have observed on many occasions this summer the squirrels up in my pear trees munching on the little pears. It’s hard to get a picture because the trees are so dense. (That’s one of the reasons the trees aren’t recommended for planting — the density turns the tree into an umbrella. What happens to umbrellas on particularly windy days? They blow away.) So anyway, back to the food discussion. Today, I pulled into my driveway and was pelted by falling pear nuts. The squirrel up in the tree (above) was ripping open the nuts and eating the fruit in the middle, then throwing the rest away.



From the looks of all the pear litter under the tree, the squirrels have been feasting for WEEKS. There are shells EVERYWHERE!

To all those arborists who swear up and down that squirrels don’t eat pear nuts, feel free to come study my trees. Squirrels DO eat the pears in ornamental pear trees. Now, about whether or not a tree that provides food for SQUIRRELS is a worthy tree is another Tree Grower’s Diary post altogether.