An Unorthodox Halloween – Page 68

Sowing…

We Halloween folk often speak of reapers and reaping.

Hard to reap, if you don’t sow…

Well, that’s proving difficult for me this year.

A year ago we found a wierdo grass from Michigan.

It even proved to grow quite as expected, and we have great hopes for those plants to spread outward this year. 12 ft tall, bamboo-like stalks that looked enough similar to cornstalks, I had this great plan to have bunches of them. Plant some more this year, and we should be able to divide the original plants next year for even more.

From Halloween buildup '08

Now, the place I bought from last year appears to have gone by the wayside this year. For, their site is selling Christmas Trees for 2008…

So, taking the scientific name of the plant, we went out and found a new source.

Now, LAST YEAR, we got root stock. THIS year, however…I’m not even entirely sure if this is the right stuff…

From Halloween buildup 09

To further complicate matters, I wanted 4, but min purchase was 8.

So, uh, any neighbors want 3 of these mysterious plants that may just be seedling starts, or might be something entirely different?

Dr Walter Bishop

If you haven’t had the opportunity, you should really check out Fringe.

Fringe is, essentially, the new X-Files. But what really stands out, is Walter Bishop.

Walter Bishop is a genius. And absolutely insane.

Yet, where the typical mad scientist is portrayed with meniacal laughter. Walter Bishop is just plain INSANE. Thoughts are rarely cohesive. And, at the end of the day, he’s the only one that has a chance of understanding what’s going on in the show.

Been a busy start of the week.

Between soccer practices and pictures, and everything, we were in the car all day Monday.

So, we’re driving down the road, and I turn on the news at 6 PM. There, they tell a news story about thousands of dead birds washing up on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

Kyle looks over at me.

“DAD!”

“what?”

“OOOOOOhhh, WE NEED TO GET OUT THERE!”

“What?”

“We’ll just pick up those birds and let them rot somewhere! It will be great! Bird skeletons!”

Yeah…He’s coming along nicely.

No, I don’t have any intention of bringing diseased bird carcasses to rot in my back yard. I don’t care if they say it “can’t be transmitted to humans or pets”.

The Charr Report.

It’s been an interesting weekend.

I remembered the Power Grab Paper Mache. Or at least a few impressions that it was nice to work with, and that it took more than 30 kids, and an adult with a baseball bat to break it.

Heck, I even had to log in here to recall the recipe.

The stuff is an absolute joy. Easily the best glue I’ve ever worked with.

One note on working with paper mache, though. Get yourself a hair dryer, or fan, or something. Took me a few days to find my old salvage one.

Now then, the “feet” are coming along.

The inspiration:

From Year of the Charr

My ‘feet’ have taken some design, and some artistic interpretations, but they are coming along great. However, we only have 2 finished, instead of the three I had hoped for.

Taping the spikes in place:

From Year of the Charr

We still need to add some detail work. But, that will come later when I make some paper clay.

From Year of the Charr

We also made a HUGE breakthrough on the legs…

After countless failures trying to be all cute and finesse with the idea…(remains of a 4th configuration)

From Year of the Charr

It was time for the no-nonsense approach.

From Year of the Charr

I’m not sure if I like the porportions right now, but chopping some length off the legs is a simple matter if I decide I don’t like it. Point is, IT WORKS!

From Year of the Charr

"Hello, My name is Bob, and I am not like Fred."

So read my son’s homework yesterday.

Highly ironic.

It goes on to read how Bob likes to stare into the sky, gazing upon the stars…

Bob, you see, is a new project. And, he is not like Fred.

Fred is great, but he was REALLY designed for hanging up on a pole, looking down on the world.

Bob, you see, needs to be designed for laying down, looking up at the sky. On the laboratory table. Fred would work fine and all, but he’s a bit heavy to be making to sit up. Bob will be lighter, easier to move.

Now, were I keeping to the whole naming convention of Fred there, we’ld be naming Bob Fred. But, that would get rather confusing. But, more on Bob to come.

Other recent additions to the Lab include a couple of experiment jars. The first being a bucket of Cheese Balls found for $5 at Staples. The Cheese Balls were average…for the first 1/2 or so…I don’t ever want to see cheese balls again at the moment…

From Lab

It’s just screaming for a head to occupy it.

Second on the list is a personal favorite of Red Vines.

From Lab

Not sure just what to put into that yet. Brain, maybe…

Then there is a bucket of pretzels screaming for an arm…but it’s at work still being emptied.

On the Charr front…I needed a break from failure there. So, we’re making the…uh, ‘feet’.

Started with just some PVC, plastic and duct tape.

From Year of the Charr

A little mache later, and we have the beginnings of a foot.

From Year of the Charr

I now have 2 completed, and we’re presently out of both glue and paper. Hoping to finish the 2 this weekend, and start on a third.

Dredging up Ghosts

Oi.

So, what’s been going on?

Well, between all the being sick, and getting Kyle’s work done on the computer, there hasn’t been a whole lot of free time to be on here lately.

After our little spout with the sickness, Kyle missed his opportunity to complete his reports at school. SO, we had to do it at home.

Powerpoint presentations, and oral reports. Too bad our powerpoint is NOT as new as the one they have a school, so Kyle didn’t really know HOW to do the stuff he needed to. Guess who got to show him?

I’m FAR from an expert with powerpoint, but I spent enough time with ye olde Apple IIe newsroom as a child (making my own paper) that everything else, frankly, seems like a piece of cake. And, I’m more than willing to click till I find what I’m looking for. Save early, save often, hard to screw up too bad that way.

Well, after getting power point WORKING, we had to dig up information. I now thuroughly hate Box Elder County. And…we’re probably going to baffle the teacher…

While they sent home a paper with a bunch of suggested talking points…I didn’t see it till this morning. Yeah…we’re not hitting those…No, Kyle wants to talk about the Ghost Towns.

So, suggesting we find a creative way to introduce the county, I’ve immortalized a bunch of Box Elder bugs into fake ice cubes. And, his oral report is largely on ghost towns…

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

Dredging up the ghosts of long forgotten towns…Boy, one would THINK it would be just like a vacation for me. What with that activity being so many of our vacations as a child. Yet, it’s all the research without the fun of standing and listening to those ghosts…

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

Ya know…were one to have a nice open field, a whole ghost town thing could be really fun to do for a haunt.

In other news…

The whole Charr Effigy project is a major pain in the ass!

I lost count what plan we’re on now, but it’s time to quit trying to be cute. Yeah, trying to get some little ‘nice’ things into the thing is just not working. Time to quite trying to finesse the damn thing and just go with the basics. Work will start moving more quickly once this report is finally finished…

It’s also that time of year to start planting some more halloween grasses…