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Halloween is over for another year, but it will linger on in yards, and alleys for at least one complete garbage pickup cycle. Halloween "week" already rivals the Christmas "season" in terms of consumer spending, and I think only Christmas produces more trash. With the possible exception of reindeer poo, Xmas has nothing on Halloween's wet, slimy, pumpkin debris. On the good side, Halloween may be one of the most biodegradable holidays --  the bulk of the trash, even including costumes, is candy, pumpkins, and cardboard fireworks casings,

Things that went bang in the night

[caption id="attachment_7196" align="alignnone" width="497"] A little "sparker" wedged in a crack in a wooden utility pole in a Fairview alley.[/caption]

This year's Halloween festivities may have been a bit subdued compared to previous years. Several people volunteered their opinion to me, for no particular reason, that they didn't hear the usual amount of fireworks noise. I don't know about that, I heard lots of firecrackers over the last week, and I'm seeing evidence of fired-off fireworks throughout the areas I travel, in Kitsilano, Fairview, and Mount Pleasant.

[caption id="attachment_7198" align="alignnone" width="497"] Spent fireworks casings piled up in Jonathan Rogers Park, near 8th, and Manitoba.[/caption]

If there's one thing I've learned about these neighbourhoods, fireworks aren't just for the teenaged kids. Halloween night is a time for entire families to gather in city parks and blow off hundreds of dollars-worth of really amazing fireworks.

The mother of all pumpkin displays?

[caption id="attachment_7199" align="alignnone" width="497"] Damaged but awesome all the same; a carved pumpkin at 12th and Alberta.[/caption]



On my way towards the bottle depot today, I found myself in the alley on the South side of 12th Avenue, at the intersection with Alberta Street. Looking to my left, I saw... well, I wasn't sure. It couldn't actually have been a pumpkin, but as I walked up to it, that's exactly what it was -- a gi-normous pumpkin -- easily the biggest I'd ever seen -- with a beautifully carved face. The damage, as if someone gave it a kick in the "teeth," was sad to see, but I'm guessed a pumpkin like this had a limited lifespan in any event.

There was what I took to be a credit, carved on the viewer's left side of the pumpkin: "R.I.P. Mike Amendt." Thanks Mike. It's amazing work. Next door there was a sprinkling of whimsically-carved little pumpkins, which were good enough to have been done by the same artist.

[caption id="attachment_7200" align="alignnone" width="497"] Little pumpkins (almost) all in a row.[/caption]

As I was leaving the bottle depot another binner was bringing in his cartload of bottles -- and what a cart! The basket was snugly covered in a kind of light green bubble wrap, and the undercarriage was strung with purple gauze. The fellow told me he seen a pile of beer bottles which he couldn't carry, and not a block away he found this shopping cart, obviously decorated for Halloween. He was pretty happy. I'm sad I wasn't able to get a picture. Ah well. There;s always next year. Click the images to enlarge them.