I debated whether or not to put up a post about Halloween Candy, but then decided that it's not JUST about Halloween Candy, it's about Mountain Living and why we love living up here in these gorgeous New Mexico mountains that we fondly call our home.
You see, we sort of live in a neighborhood. There are six houses on our gravel road. We know everyone in each of those houses, first and last names. We also know at least 4 of our other neigbors that live on the outskirts of our neighborhood. We have met them while out hiking, walking llamas, dogs, and riding horses. Everyone is very nice and quite welcoming; always glad to see us. We all have between 3-10 acres and are located in a lovely valley surrounded by mountains, trees, ridgetops, and gorgeous sunrises and sunsets.
So, we have quite a bit to be grateful for.
Last year my kids and I chose to drive into Albuquerque to do our trick-or-treating, thinking we could just park in a neighborhood and walk from door-to-door while the kids could hit many more houses than they could do out here, where houses are separated by acres, not fences and walls.
The kids figured that they'd get alot more candy in the city, then here in our little mountain town. Boy! They were wrong.
Yes, we could visit more houses in the city, but we discovered that the pickings tend to be slimmer, usually just one or two pieces of candy per kids. And the candy variety usually leaned toward the icky side...lots of tootsie rolls, fire balls, necco wafers, hard candy, mary janes, and sweet tarts. Chocolate bars were rare.
We discovered last night, that Trick-or-Treating in our mountains means alot more generosity, in not only, amount, but type of candy given out. And the homeowners that greeted us were not only welcoming, but absolutely thrilled to have us come beg for candy. They didn't just drop one piece of candy into the kid's bags, they begged them to grab handfuls of goodies from their candy bowls. And if the kids didn't take, what they thought was enough, they grab some more candy to dump into my kids' bags. My kidlets were thrilled, to say the least.
Some of the folks even gave out baggies stuffed full of fun goodies such as toys, mini-coloring books, pencils and book markers, along with the candy. And there were several homes in the Halloween spirit who did entire haunted trails with music, lights, fog and spooky dioramas. And at one house, we were even invited in to their festive and friendly Halloween party. What fun!
My kids weren't able to run from house to house, like the city kids do, but they got really good at hopping out of my van and scooting through any Halloween decorated open gates and trotting up those long twisting driveways to the waiting candy-givers.
While we were out we noticed several mountain neighborhoods utilizing hay wagons to cart kids and families around to trick-or-treat. What a brilliant idea, I thought. And it was fun to wave and wish everyone a Happy Halloween as we drove by them.
By the end of the night we visited less than 20 houses. But when we dumped all the candy the kids had gathered, onto the kitchen table, we were all pretty darned amazed at how much was there.
Do you wanna see our Halloween Loot?
Not too bad for trick-or-treating in the rural mountains, eh?We hope everyone had a safe, and wonderfully fun Halloween!!
19 comments :
How fun! We live on a similar gravel road with only 6 houses, but nobody trick or treats here. In town they have a community thing where the stores all participate, and everyone goes down there and fills the sidewalks instead and goes store-to-store.
Maybe you can train your llama to pull a cart and next year you can 'drive' the kids from house to house - that would turn some heads!
yes, trick or treating in the east mountains is amazing! People are so generous that you don't need to hit on 100 houses to score. And the candy! Granola bars, pencils, variety items, and chocolate bars galore!
You probably saw my son on one of those hayrides. lol!
oh yeah, and our neighborhood really is tops, isn't it? Everyone is friendly but they do mind their own business too.
How fun and cozy! What a great place to live!
Looks like you hit the candy fairy.
Wish our take was so good, we ended up with alot of the stuff that's not too safe for a 2yr old. Oh well. Next year we'll just hit neighbors up!
Colleen
Similar story here, although our little neighborhood doesn't do much for Halloween. We went to my parents' house (our old neighborhood too) and the kids trick or treated there.
We had a party for a bunch of hs'ing pre/early teens the night before, and they went to another hs'ing party last night, so it feels like Halloween has been a week-long affair here!
Hey! Not bad at all! A lot better than apples. popcorn balls, walnuts and toothbrushes!! LOL... how many times have I seen that in halloween bags of yesteryears bags.... (groan)....
What a lovely neighborhood. You are very blessed.
My brother lives in a townhouses neighborhood with over 180 units. That is where we went trick or treating this year. I'd say less than half the houses were even participating, and yeah a lot of what he got was yucky stuff. We figured next year we'd have to drive into a suburban neighborhood, but maybe we'll try trick or treating in the country.
Lisa,
I love what you've done with the Blog! it is so awesome. I read your blog and realize you are on lightening speed - I do not know how you do it all dear...I feel like I am crawling along behind ya!
I met another Nigie person who bought a Mini Mancha recently and she lives out in your area - hope you two can join up sometime - her name is Jen and she has several Nigies and the mini Mancha. She is also part of SWNDGC!
Deanna
Quality beats Quantity every time.
Sounds like you live in a great neighborhood. Cherish it.
We have learned the same thing. Happy Halloween!
First of all, thank you! This blog is my way to connect with other horse people, cause although Marcy is awesome & so is the Draft Horse Manager at my college, they are but two perspectives. To learn, for me, I have to be influenced by dozens of people. That said, it's also wonderful to talk horsey with other people...most of my friends at school aren't, unfortunately :(.
As for TTeam, did you know there was a Youtube channel by them? http://www.youtube.com/user/TellingtonTTouch Great stuff.
Also, Linda wrote a huge volume, well worth the money, called "The Ultimate Horse Behavior & Training Book", one of the many writings I reference when I train. There's a case study in the back of a horse who wouldn't trailer. Basically, Linda started from the very basics, getting this gelding to bring his head down, allow her to touch his face & ears, progressing through ground work exercises to make him feel safe & secure, adding things like tarps flying over his head & having him walk on them til he could stand still & comfortable, then walking on boards or planks, & only after he was calm with all that stuff did they introduce him to the trailer again. When they did this, they let the gelding see the trailer at all angles, think about it for a while, then back off & return to things he was comfortable with before returning to the trailer. They loaded a buddy of his into the trailer & gradually let him think his way through to, "The trailer is a fine place to be, it's not gonna eat me." This took one day long session, & now he's a perfect loader. That said, everything with horses takes time.
Thank you again!
Perfect song for a Sunday reading of your blog..."Strong Tower"...
Thanks for the music and the wonderful reading sweetie!
Halloween is redeeemed with your adventure in friendliness and wonderful neighbors!
Great times!
Oh my goodness, I trick-or-treating in a development, with probably 30 houses if not more, and I didn't get that much! Yey for your kids! :D
Happy belated Halloweeen!
Country trick-r-treating is just the best....we have always come home with a "haul" from our rural friends and neighbors. Love it when we get popcorn balls, homemade cookies and apples.....and they are safe to eat because you know where they came from......=)
Hey! I like Toosie Rolls! :)
Great neighbors are such a blessing. Don't eat too much chocolate.
Not bad at all! It sounds like you guys made some good memories at the same time. Good for you.
That is so true for us too!! We get on a trailer with bales of hay and drive from house to house! LOL!! And the loot is a lot better than when we went to the "big city"!! LOL!!
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