The Dark Garden

The air was still and the fog crept low as Rose beheld her garden...

Physically, the haunt this year looked the best it ever has. Still a few issues with lighting and photography, but all in all, I'm pleased with the way things turned out.

More to come.

The Halloween Tree of Woe

I always hated this tree.

It's a Japanese Maple and over the past few years it's been an overgrown lump. It was just a giant weeping hulking mass of shrivelly leaves with little to no branch or trunk to be seen. In trying to make room to be able to see more of the haunt in the yard, it became obvious that we needed to trim it back. At first I was hesitant to do so figuring it wouldn't be anough to just trim it and hacking it almost all the way back would make it even more of an eyesore.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Once we got under the canopy and took a good look underneath, I very quickly decided to lay into it. Once we trimmed up the outside, cut out all the small dead stuff and got to the knuckles, it literally became a thing of eerie beauty. All those gnarled, intertwined branches growing and twisting around and even through each other gave it a new, darker life of it's own.



I themed it as the Halloween Tree this year, but henceforth it shall be known as The Tree of Woe. The best part, though, is it's like having a built in Halloween prop in my yard all year 'round.

I love my tree.

Feilte Samhain and Happy Halloween

Though it seemed it wouldn't happen for much of the past few weeks, the weather improved and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect night. The moon was huge and bright. The air was crisp and still. The fog hung low. The lights burned dimly and for a few hours... the fates were with us and all was right with the world.

With over a hundred visitors, our first year with Rose was a resounding success. My humble and everlasting thanks to Rob at Skull and Bone for making it all possible. Thanks, also, to all those who helped as well as my family, friends, neighbors, followers and fellow haunters. You all make it worth it.

More photos and video coming soon.

Teaser Poster

Candle, Candle Burning Bright...

Building and repair of the Haunt has commenced!

I thought I'd share one of the smaller, yet larger, projects to take on this year. That project was the faux candles that came with the haunt from Skull and Bone.

I say smaller in that, typically, PVC candles aren't very big.

I say larger by virtue of sheer numbers.

The originals from Rob were cut, grouped in some cases, and then slather-coated with "Fix-All" which is a powder that, when mixed with water, forms a sort of plaster. It bulked out the straight PVC pipe and made them look "softer". Some were also filled with Great Stuff to build up the inside and form a "shelf" for the tea lights to sit on.

Years of use and weathering had caused many of them to become brittle and unstable. During the transporting of the haunt a good many of them essentially shattered and I was left with bare pipes and piles of plaster chips. Some came apart just picking them up as the plaster makes them heavy and some of the groups weren't wired or otherwise bound together first. Many, however, did escape harm and were reusuable with the plaster mostly intact.

So, I've spent the better part of the week cleaning off bad spots, clearing out the insides, replastering, adding hot glue "drips", adding foam inserts and painting eighty-six PVC candles.

Yep. Eighty-six.

About 24 hours combined, 6 cans of spray paint, a half-gallon of acrylic ceramic tile adhesive, approximately 100-4" and 80-10" hot-glue sticks, a few lengths of sliced foam pipe-wrap for tea light shelves, and two numb and swollen hot-glue gun trigger-fingers later... I'm pretty pleased with the results.

The originals were "smoother", but I wanted to add detail by giving them more pronounced drips. I may have gone a little overboard, but I like them slightly exaggerated. Plus, they are all much more stable and durable now and should last for many years.

Now I only have to get about 30 more tea lights. =\

Work on the haunt continues apace.

Priceless

 


Truck & trailer rental and gas:
$900

Round trip Portland, OR to San Luis Obispo, CA:
1,700 miles

Total drive time over three days:
31 hours

Coming home with one of the greatest yard haunts ever by one of the classiest, most generous haunters ever:

Priceless.
 

Meet the Kreeps

My son and I with one of our newest family members from our trip to pick up SkullAndBone's Miss Rose haunt.