Grimrot Cemetery underwent quite a number of changes this year. There were simple plans originally but somehow that changed as time went on. I've had a D-Light ACx16 controller sitting around for several years that was intend to be used for some custom lighting in the old cemetery and for that other holiday. So the plan for this year was to create a simple chorus of singing lack o'lanterns. The jacks had all been acquired over several years or after Halloween sales and all I had to do was pick out some appropriate Halloween songs to sequence with the lights in them. HA! I wish...

"Where do I put them was the first" question that came to mind. In the driveway by the video screen, on the front porch mixed in with the vegetable pumpkins, where? In the end this simple question lead to the construction of 50 feet of new fencing to go in the yard where the cemetery used to be. BUT! Because I did not like the way my old fence was constructed I decided to build one from 100% PVC pipe. This lead to the discovery that the good old skull whistles that I used to use as fence toppers were no longer available, thanks to the Chinese using lead in them. Rather than tell you how I solved this problem you should take a look at the new tutorial (coming soon) I've created. That brought the list up to two projects; Singing pumpkins and fencing. Oh yeah, that fencing project also included the addition of 3 new fence support posts and a gate.

Some point after Halloween 2009 the head to my scarecrow pit the dust and I tossed it. Unfortunately I totally forgot this fact and only recalled it two weeks out. DOH! Another new project. So a bag of packing peanuts, some string, tape, a gallon of Bondo, some paint, and four days later I have a new jack o'lantern head for the scarecrow. I learned a couple of things with this project; remember to write down when props die, Bondo freakin' rocks, and Home Depot sells little samples of Behr paints that can be custom mixed to any color in the line.

The final project that appeared was a rework of the flight path of my Axworthy Ghosts. Previously it had run across my front yard and my neighbor's yard from a pine tree to a utility pole. Last year I experienced several line breaks/derails and I was also not satisfied with the lack of attention it received from the ToTs. This year I the plan was to have it fly from the pine tree to the mailbox then to the front porch then the same path in reverse. To make this happen required that I pull up the cast iron mailbox post and reset it in concrete. I then had to build a new idler pulley assembly on a top of 10' steel pipe that slips into the top of said mailbox post. This idler assembly has two 12" bike wheel pulleys; one for outbound and one for the return trip. The return trip idler pulley is on a spring tensioned slider that helps maintain line tension in order to prevent derailing or breaks. I also had to rework the idler that used to mount on the utility pole so it would properly mount to the front porch column and replace the motor on the drive pulley yet again. I've finally settled on a standard wiper motor I think.

After all that, here are a few pics from the night.

Of course, Brunhilde the witch paid us another visit this year. Here is a view of her from atop the garage.

See you next year!