Baby Girl 1936

Halloween Photography Challenge

When I go back to Wisconsin to spend Halloween with my son and his family, it’s become a tradition for my Granddaughter to explore a cemetery with me.

This year she chose the memorials for us to visit and photograph and I was proud of the fact that she spent time with them. She wiped away the grit ( gently ) and read the names and dates. She had thoughts on the artwork, she asked me why nobody visited the really old grave makers except for us.

Sometimes she agreed to be photographed with some of the grave stones  and others she just said ” no ”  without any explanation. But you have to respect that so I didn’t photograph her with those particular ones. When I asked why she just shrugged and said,” I don’t feel like it. ”

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Jemma
Wisconsin,
USA
OCTOBER 2025

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Jemma
Wisconsin,
USA
OCTOBER 2025

The ” look ” is because I got sidetracked and it took me a minute to catch up with her.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Jemma
Wisconsin,
USA
OCTOBER 2025

I’m not sure what caught her interest with this gravestone, but Jemma read each line and asked for the math so that she new how old the person was when they died and how old the grave was.

After I told her, she sat back on her heels and studied it for awhile and then she got up and took me to her next find.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Jemma
Wisconsin,
USA
OCTOBER 2025

When Jemma found this, two things bothered her.

The first was the fact this was a baby and that she had no name and that she probably died on the same day she was born.

Jemma was adamant, ” Babies don’t belong here. ”

I told her a lot of people felt the same way she did.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Jemma
Wisconsin,
USA
OCTOBER 2025

I suppose you could say that we also do some traditional Halloween things like:

Me and Jemma painted our pumpkins

Me and Jemma’s Painted our pumpkins.
October 2025

We paid extra attention to Jemma’s sister Luna ( my newest granndaughter…isn’t she ADORABLE? ) because she couldn’t hang around with us for most of the fun

My Granddaughter Luna in her first Halloween costume!

We went Trick or treating and we went to parties and each moment was spooktacular.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Jemma and Jayde
Wisconsin,
USA
OCTOBER 2025

Jemma and Jayde
Fox Lake Wisconsin
October 2025

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Fox Lake, WI
October 2025 Moscoso/Casey Family

This prompt asked us to take a picture of your favorite thing about Halloween but there are so many parts of Halloween that I love, so I went ahead and overshared!

amm

Halloween at The Woods House

WRITOBER FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE: Embracing our Deepest Fears.

I fell behind in completing my challenge last month- I was on vacation and then I caught a cold. But I want to finish what I started so I’m going to finish up my H’ween Challenge!

Photo by Pumpkinrot

My family does not appreciate my efforts in celebrating the holiday season.

They don’t like the food I prepare, they don’t like the decorations, they don’t like my efforts to bring a little life to our otherwise dull and quiet home.

” Why does she put us through this? My family asks each other. “Can’t she read the room? Nobody likes all of this dark and morbid stuff. Nobody wants to eat the food she leaves on the kitchen table.  I swear to God. She’s like a cat dragging a half eaten rat home and leaving it in your favorite pair of shoes as a ‘gift’.”

I like my cuts of meat rare, I thought they did too. I suppose they like it warmer then I’m used too. Garlic I thought, maybe I should add some garlic.

A few days ago I heard them in the kitchen and it broke my heart.

” Maybe we should you know- maybe we should get someone to talk to her. Someone she will listen too. ” Bonnie  told my Great Grandson.

I backed up from the doorway  and hid around the corner.

My Great Grandson, who I always considered to be a good egg told his mother Bonnie, ” What if she won’t listen? What if she goes on decorating the front porch with skeletons and severed heads and bowls of candy? What if she keeps on cooking- ” well. I don’t know what this is, but what if she won’t stop? I love her, but seriously Mom. She makes us look like a family of serial killers every Halloween.”

Bonnie took my dish from the table and looked down into it. ” Well. I suppose we call the Priest- she listens to them. Not that she has much choice. Maybe he can talk her into staying in her room for awhile ” she told my Great Grandson Tucker. ” The bottom line is we can’t have her making us look like serial killers for Halloween- or any other day for that matter. Socially it could be the death of us all ”

Bonnie’s husband called from the hallway as he lumbered down the stairs from the attic, ” we weren’t the Serial Killers. That was my Mom’s gig when she was alive. We’re spree killers. There’s a difference.”

Uncle Percy

Experience Writing Halloween Challenge Theme:  Extra Terrestrials

When I was a girl, my Grand  Uncle Percy had been a fighter pilot in WWII.

That little factoid surprised me because my Grand Uncle was so awful at driving cars that nobody wanted to ride with him EVER.

His cars were always dented, the windshields were always cracked and the interior of his cars always smelled of stale smoke and mold.

Another odd think about my Grand Uncle is that once he left the Air Force, he never flew again- and by that I mean not only did he never fly a plane again, he never set foot on one as a passenger either.

 

One year at a family dinner my Grandma said the reason he never flew a plane again was ‘because of that thing he saw ‘.

We were all sitting around my Grandma’s dining room table and the smell of roast beef was still in the air. I chased green bean around my plate with my desert fork.

” What did he see?” I asked for the millionth time and for the millionth time my Grandma told me that he was out flying a mission at night ( that was his thing apparently ) when something flew  under him.

He said the air in his plane got really hot and it smelled- it didn’t smell like fuel or anything that he thought he’d smell if his plane had been hit by something.

Then what ever had been under him moved and the next thing he saw was the other pilot looking back at  him from a dark plane with jagged wings.

” It was that face- ” he had told my Great Grandma ( his Mom was the only person he ever told his story to ) ” It was pretty awful, but what made it worse was when it smiled at me. And the smell. I’ll never forgot that moldy smoky smell.  I’m sure it came from that machine. But I don’t know how it got into my plane. ”

Photo A.M. Moscoso
October 2024

My Grand Uncle, like I said couldn’t drive his car worth a toot, it always smelled funny and when I was little and he took me for a ride to the park or the zoo, I tried to hold my breath but of course I couldn’t hold my breath for long.

All I know is that smell got so much worse when he smiled.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
October 2024

The Cemetery Trees

Experience Writing Challenge: Other-Worldly Monsters

To be sure, when you think of other worldly beings, you think of The Greys, Men In Black ( I put the Mothman in this category too ) UFO’s and Aliens with fangs and ray guns.

But recently I was exploring cemeteries in Wisconsin with my son and Granddaughter and I took her cousin along for her first ” haunt ” and I saw-really  noticed the trees and today I am putting the trees I saw at the Stone Cemetery into that other worldly category.

Take a look and see if you feel what I saw that day:

Photo A.M. Moscoso Stone Cemetery Rolling Prairie, Dodge County, Wisconsin, USA October 2025

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Stone Cemetery
Rolling Prairie, Dodge County, Wisconsin, USA
October 2025

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Stone Cemetery
Rolling Prairie, Dodge County, Wisconsin, USA
October 2025

Photo J.M. Moscoso
Stone Cemetery
Rolling Prairie, Dodge County, Wisconsin, USA
October 2025

Photo J.M. Moscoso
Stone Cemetery
Rolling Prairie, Dodge County, Wisconsin, USA
October 2025