Gone Feral In Idaho

... well, sort of. Last Halloween was the final year of Haunt Stress, at least as far as I was concerned. My biggest stress was the elaborate light show with tons of homemade spotlights run from my computer using freeware that was buggy and often shut down unexpectedly. That and the hundreds of feet of wire that ran throughout my entire yard. Connections would fail and troubleshooting was extremely tedious and exhausting. We ran the light show for 9 years and it was amazing when it worked. I spent hours sequencing lights to music and it was so satisfying to watch. But the show always glitched worse and worse throughout the night each year. That seemingly miles of wires everywhere made it impossible to walk around in without damaging something. We limped it along last Halloween, but I was so stressed and exhausted afterwards that I'd end up feeling pretty bummed out by the end of it all. That isn't what the Halloween experience should be like. I do it to be a part of my comm...

I know it sounds trivial, but haunt stress is a real thing. I know, I have it. Over nine years, I've built with my own bare hands, hundreds of elements that I set up each Halloween. There's the graveyard, the fence, the fence columns, over 120 hand made spotlights, figures, and then the light show. The light show alone is the result of hundreds of hours of work (plus the help from David Ultis). It is all done by hand with freeware, which can be finicky and troublesome to get working correctly. Last year I had a crowd of people in front of my house chanting "We want the light show!" Over and over while I scurried about, headlamp strapped to my head in the dark checking wires, hardware, and the computer program I use trying to find out what wasn't working. My blood pressure wasn't good, I'm sure. I have literally put my own blood sweat and tears into this thing. And it's free! The only donations we take are pet food for the Idaho Humane Society That ...

Click the photo to see the video.

2015 was an interesting haunt year, as all are. I spent a lot of time repainting my tombstones and aging several that I've meant to do for the past few years. I also hit a limit on new features to add when I had to stop and rope things in to be ready. That is always a tough decision. I tried advertising by promoting our new Idaho Humane Society donation collections with two of the local news channels. They told me that they'd post something with photos and details, but nothing was done. I paid for Facebook boosting on my haunt page and it got lots of hits, but the numbers were about the same. We had 34 trick or treaters and their families. We even handed out full sized candy bars that the kids loved. Sadly, there were no donations for the IHS. Haunters have to take the good with the bad. This was the monument I made for my sister's memory. My mom flew out this year for her first haunt experience and she had a good time. She liked the monument and we kept a real candl...

 The cemetery is up. Characters and the light show go up this week.

Family Portrait I just packed up the haunt and we got everything up in the rafters and all the storage places we could find. I took down the Halloween wreath and put up the Thanksgiving one. I even changed the porch light from black light to warm white. We saved two of the corn stalk bundles and put them up on either side of the porch. All signs of yard haunt 2011 are gone.  We didn't get as many TOTs this year as last, but we aren't in a very enthusiastic neighborhood either. We did have a lot of people stop by during the weekend and got lots of great compliments. I got to take some photos and really tried hard at video, but I don't have the right equipment for that. Maybe next year. I met almost all of my deadlines, but there are always a few that time won't allow for. I now have 364 days to get more lighting sequences done, an next year will have a proper Halloween tree. I almost did too much this year and got pretty stressed with the pressure to finish. B...

Kyle dug the wreath out of the rafters of the garage. The Halloween one. I added some autumn colored leaves and a string of battery powered LED's. I love that we now have a season to bring all the ghoulies out of the garage rafters. He is really getting in the festive mood this year, and is currently looking up zombie makeup on the tubes. Ahh... the season is upon us haunters! I'm just starting to feel right at home again. Bring it.

The eyes will hopefully dim on and off by Halloween.

Here's what 9 cheapo mini spots can do to a new prop. This guy is of course inspired by Pumpkinrot's 2007 haunt . Kyle liked him better undressed, but I told him that the mystery of what's underneath is what is important to me. I hope I get the light animation down for this year's haunt. I might be a static prop haunter, but my lighting will be a bit, um, dynamic.  

I made this one in VideoPad instead of Movie Maker.  I learned that I need to take a lot more photos to string together as a move.  I will also work on improving my video skills as well.  

The lights are on, the fogger is on, allthe candles ar flickering as should be.  We have a great Halloween mix playing on outdoor speakers as ell.  The kids really like my witches.  The witches just a bit taller than most of them  Perfect!  hey keep standing in front of them, some o them reach out to ouch a nose or some teeth.  I'll post some photos later in the night. Happy Halloween!

We'll see if the local news puts our haunt on their display map.  Some might not like the idea of witches...  Anywhoo, I just got home from my second 13 hr shift in a row and have to somehow wind down to start a 14 hour shift in the AM.  I've been working on cases all day (and night) and I encountered a lot of poop (seriously).  In the meantime I thought I'd post a few more pics from the past weekend and then I'll be doing the final tweaks for the year on Thursday with newer photos to follow shortly.  We are having a pumpkin carving party on Saturday, so I still have those to add to the haunt as well.  Gosh, so many things to do.  If I'm lucky, no one will die tomorrow.  That reminds me of the novel I'm going to write, again, I digress, I'm just a little fried, please forgive me.  On to the photos!  Please click to enlarge for better detail. Yes my cauldron sucks, I promise to improve for next year. I call the one below witch booty.I sh...