Sunday, November 8, 2015

Annual Coffin Fixin' Day


Wild Scarecrows

So a few years ago I placed two scarecrows in the "Old Man's Woods" by my house. A place where an elderly neighbor would clear paths and organize sticks and branches into sizes and shape trees with supports. Like creepy bonsai. He musta been a gardener or something. He even had a work bench and a tool rack with a cover tarp to protect his tools. Now this is not someone's private property, just a green belt between subdivisions. In other places, you'll find abandoned forts and stuff. I placed the s'crows on the outskirts of where he tended so to let him have his place and I have mine. But if you stood at the base of the trees where they were, you wouldn't notice them. You had to be out on the road to spot them. I went back today to check out the area and placed my rotting jack o' lantern if possible.

A stick pile. There are several of these 


His branch holder for cutting sticks. It's pretty nifty

Last year, these were all in a row, like a boardwalk 

Pvc pipes He placed as markers. They go around they cypress marsh in a circle

Weird tree supports

So my scarecrows were falling apart and each one lost an arm. I took them down and rebuilt them as one. Like Frankenstein. And placed the jack o'lantern on it. Between the mysterious old man and me, it's getting to be a little Mr. Jones'ey....


One Scarecrow's hand


One Scarecrow's hand with a spider web inside





From the sidewalk

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

More Pics

Wife's pictures she and I took when mine crapped out Halloween night. Thanks, Honey! Some nice shots of the whole house, garage and vampcrows.












Monkey-bat




Monday, November 2, 2015

More 2015 Haunt- The Willow Cove Vampire

Well, I am still putting props away today and wanted to post some more pics. It was a good haunt this year. There were less kids than last year and we don't know why. There was a Taylor Swift concert in town and someone said thats where most kids probably were. Damn you, Taylor! But all who came by seemed to like the haunt. A lot of kids were afraid to walk up to the door where me and the Count were hanging out. I would just quietly stand behind the Count and point to the candy bowl at his feet.
That was too much for a few kids who refused to walk up.
     The monolith was my big project this year along with building the vampire. I will show construction pics soon.  I am happy how it turned out, though it did take awhile to carve the column.  the Count originally was going to be a puppet head but ended up being static. Some things I drew up never got completed and will be appearing next year.  I tried to make too many staked vampire scarecrows and ran out of time. And the Count's pvc body was being troublesome, and I was trying to complete him Friday night. I wanted a laser vortex in the garage and built a spinning mirror thingy that worked with a green laser I got, but it was hard to see the laser cone in person and it would not register at all on camera.
     So a Fire & Ice light from Spirit was the back up. It worked great at blocking out the garage with fog as it swirled with green and blue lights. While it is intended for throwing shimmering light far away, aimed at the viewer, it did give a vortex/poltergeist effect and was easy to set up.
     I haven't used a digital camera in a few years, and I need to go back to using one. An iPhone is handy but mine is starting to crap out and a lot of night pics were blurry. And our computer has trouble accepting videos from my phone so a digital camera might be the answer.  I might do some landscaping redesigning in the yard this year to block out houses along the driveway for better backgrounds. I always get pumped up after Halloween and love to spend winter and the new year fixing things while it is cooler here in Florida. The graveyard fence needs some tweaking because the sections keep falling over. And the coffin needs beefing up as the old bottom rotted out and the kimono vamp almost dropped thru when it was moved. A few years outside has taken a toll on it, although it looks better as it ages. Like me ;)