The Think Tank

This weekend was the Great Pumpkin Snatch of ’09!  We went with the Janes and their neighbors out by Champoeg park to a field owned by the same people we have been getting our pumpkins from for 10-12 years now, and what a day for it!  About 70 degrees and bright and sunny, this was without a doubt one of the best pumpkin hunting trips we have ever taken.

We finished up with about 1/2 ton of pumpkins, which is a ridiculous amount but is in fact about half of what we hauled out of there last year.

The hunting itself took only about and hour, and then it was back down to the little shack to pick up some produce while I took pictures of a bicycle event that was taking place, headquartered across the road at Champoeg park.  I really liked the fall colors, the quiet country road and the bicyclers.
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Well, as always we are a little behind the curve on getting the Halloween preparations started, but at last they have begun!  We started putting up lights and what-not last night, and we should have that finished by tomorrow.   My goal is to get the lights and smaller, easier stuff up by the first of October.  Then I can start putting out the yard decorations and working on the projects I have for this year, namely:

• I need to fix the voice box for the Grave Jumper, since it kept flaking out last year.  I may even change how he works a little bit, so he works in better concert with the crypt I would like to make
• Make a crypt.  I’m thinking it will go at the end of the yard under the apple tree and will hopefully accommodate a floating ghost in the doorway and a perhaps a new and improved Grave Jumper.  I’m thinking maybe he will jump up off a chair or something.
• I want to build a number of poseable PVC skeletons to serve as the base of some props
• Gauntlets and Boots for my costume.
• New and Improved fog chiller for front yard with at least one constant fog machine (possibly requiring the creation of a constant fogger)

That’s probably all I can manage.  We’ll see.  Hopefully I will have enough time to make some more corpsfied hands and faces for some of this stuff as well.  We’ll just have to see how everything pans out.  I’ll try to keep the Halloween page updated as things come together.

Amazingly, Halloween is just around the corner. We haven’t actually started on working on anything yet as all the pesky hassles of life keep getting in the way, but we will soon be getting the house ready for All Hallow’s Eve!

Stay tuned for further updates!