Return to the Earth

Ashes to ashes.......

Happy Halloween 2013 from the Deadwood Cemetery!

Hope Mother Nature is good to all of you haunters out there!

See you next year!

Decorating commences!!

Time to start pulling the stuff from the attic and basement and get this place whipped up into Halloween shape. Before we could get started, I needed to build another corner cabinet to hold our growing collection of stuff. Now we can get serious.

Pumpkin family picture

Got all of our pumpkins picked now and set them out to cure. I learned that after picking they should sit in the sun for up to two weeks to cure and harden the outer skin. Seems to be working. Our biggest pumpkin this year weighed in at a wopping 48.2 pounds! Not huge by any standards, but for us that is far beyond the 10 pounders we got in the past. Lots of carving on the schedule now.

Also decided to make another group prop from a 10$ walmart skeleton for the fireplace hearth. Happy with the way it turned out. Did not really want to use my Pumpkinrot jack in it, but after putting him there, it looked right and so at home.

It's harvest time

Looks like the pumpkin patch of 2013 is finally at a close. This year we managed to get 8 very good sized pumpkins, by far the best crop ever. Hell if I know why, but never the less happy about it. We still have 3 left to orange up, but as for the other five they are ready to pick. I am a bit hesitant to pick them as we never had a crop ready this early. If anybody has tips to how to keep them fresh till Halloween please pass it on. Not sure if I should leave them on the vine or not.

Using what you have

Once again this year I find that we can have a lot of fun working with what we already have.

Props always look cool when you get them, but sometimes standing alone they seem to lose

a bit and seem smaller and not as visually impressive as once thought. I guess that can happen when

you have too much stuff...although I will never admit that. I found that grouping props into a

single stand alone piece can be better than just tossing them in the yard randomly or in the

garbage for that matter. Below are a few examples. I took a 12$ bag of bones we had, a extra small tombstone, and a evil light up pumpkin we had. Alone, they were not much, but together I

think we came up with a cool stand alone prop that goes with the graveyards theme much better.

I also had a nice wall buster plaque I got about 10 years ago. Looked ok on a wall, but not a lot

of "wow" effect. I decided to grab a piece of foam board and mount it to a large tombstone and 

place a couple of flicker candles in the eyes. Was also going to toss out the Boneyard sign as it was 

damaged and seen better days. Stuck that to the bottom and it completed a nice addition to

the cemetery. I left it open on the back with a wire so I will also use it as a large wall hanging prop

So now instead of having a box of odds and ends, I have just two condensed props that look

much better together. time to see what else is laying around.....

Brew review

Had a chance to sample a newcomer to my vault of pumpkin brews this season.
Lakefront Brewery, from my original home town Milwaukee, Wi.
is offering up a lager made with pumpkin and spices. Had to rate this one
about a 4 out of 5. Very impressed with the amount of flavoring. Not overpowering
and very clean and refreshing. I like my pumpkin beer a bit heavier and cloudy,
but I would have to recommend this brew to any in search of
a good fall beer.

Almost ready.....

Monster pumpkin?

Well, maybe not, but this is by far the best pumpkin that I have grown to date. It's still growing so who knows how large it will get. I put a key on it for size reference. The vines borers are a no show so far this year. Last fall I dug through the dirt and removed any of the nasty white worms, so maybe that helped. By this time last year they were already killing the plants so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Just have about 5 other starters on the vines. A lot of the females seemed to wither before flowering so no chance for them but there is still plenty of time left!

Home Haunter DVD awards 2012....Yeah!

Just wanted to post a great big thanks to Jeff and Chris Davis over at the Davis Graveyard. It appears that The Deadwood Cemetery was the recipient of the static prop vanguard award for 2012 !
We could not be more thrilled! Just to be listed with all the other great haunts is an honor and to be recognized is a dream come true. Thanks again to all those who worked so hard putting the dvd collection together and to the judges volunteering their time and talents. Use the link below to view the great website set up for all the home Haunters video information and all the other winners.

http://hauntersvideos.com/purchase.php

2013 Pumpkin patch progress

Boy, it really has been a long time since posting last. Been taking a break from things and concentrating on work. But it is probably time to get planning and building for this years haunt so I guess I'm back in the saddle. Just wanted to show a couple of pics of the pumpkin plants this year so far. They are coming along nicely, but one plant in particular which did not get planted in the bed with the rest is growing like crazy. The leaves on it are huge as you can tell in the picture with my hand for scale. Now I have to keep an eye out for the vine borers and try to catch them before things get out of hand like last year.