Category: The Harvest

The Harvest is forming.

First light this morning.

From 2010 Buildup

As you can tell I had already been at it for some time…

A pumpkin creeper body, waiting for a head.

From 2010 Buildup
From 2010 Buildup

Couple more hanging off the fence.

From 2010 Buildup
From 2010 Buildup

So, day’s end.

Front back together, and torches posted.

From 2010 Buildup

I got this panicked moment when I realized that, with the gazebo broken this year, I had no way to get the chords across the path. Raven grass is my answer. I planted this stuff specifically for use on Halloweens, but hadn’t planed on using it this year. I’ll tie the tops of it I have posted to either side of the fence there to make an arch, and presto, chord up and over. (In about 2-3 years, I’ll have LOTS of this grass)

From 2010 Buildup

I’m not a HUGE fan of the scarecrows, but it’s the clothes I could find in short order. (mostly cast aways from my son)

From 2010 Buildup
From 2010 Buildup

‘The orchard’ area. I’ve decided we’ll hang some lanterns and spray some webs in these trees.

From 2010 Buildup

Fred on his spit.

From 2010 Buildup

Fred seems to get better with age…(now 3 years old)

From 2010 Buildup

The fence creepers. I was out fiddling, trying to get them on after dark. Torches lit to see what I was doing, and get a feel for things. A car was stopped in the street watching as I plugged these in and I just hear a “holy crap that’s cool” waft out from the window.

From 2010 Buildup
From 2010 Buildup
From 2010 Buildup

The pumpkinhead scarecrow to honor the picture that started all this.

From 2010 Buildup

Sorry it’s blurry, but I’m using the point and shoot sans tripod. Testing the battery tea lights I bought. Should work great.

From 2010 Buildup

Even the crappy ‘crows look half decent in the dim torchlight.

From 2010 Buildup

It’s what’s for dinner.

A neighbor lost a fence to weather, and I’ve been putting the remnants to good use.

Poor Fred.

From 2010 Buildup

And, the Tzompantli are making a more…rustic…appearance this year.

From 2010 Buildup

Talia is getting in the spirit as well, with a pirate hat.

From 2010 Buildup

“cool pirate boat” (she’s a ‘pirate sword princess’ this year)

From 2010 Buildup

And a “scary monster for daddy”

From 2010 Buildup

Meanwhile, I have a host of scarecrows waiting to be stuffed in the house, and a slew of emt conduit that’s been bent beyond recognition laying around. But, we’ll get more on those things later.

Failure, restart, and an orchard.

I had the panicking realization I had no costume yet….

The first attempt at a mask….well, I got about halfway through, and decided I just wasn’t feeling it.

From 2010 Buildup

Felt too much like I should be dancing around musically pondering the location of my brain.

So, we scrapped that and moved on to attempt #2.

This involved sculpting me a face, and molding the burlap to it, then sewing it all back together.

The mouth will glue onto my own so that it moves…

From 2010 Buildup

And, some donation from the neighbors has led to my creation of ‘The Orchard’ in the back yard. Normally just a big flat lawn, we now have ‘trees’.

From 2010 Buildup
From 2010 Buildup

Trying to twist some of the straighter trees up a bit by binding the ‘green’ branches back onto themselves for a few days.

From 2010 Buildup

We can only hope the leaves all drop in time.

What, exactly, I’ll end up doing with the trees, I’m not entirely sure just yet.

Beginning setup in earnest.

Busy, busy weekend.

Another load of Reed grass reaped on Saturday, along with transporting ole Jack to his new home. The new grass left us with very little in the way of storage room, however, and it was time to just drop all pretenses and begin the setup proper.

With a storm bearing down on us tonight/tomorrow, goal was just to begin getting things UP. We can make them pretty later.

With some out of town obligations this afternoon, I came home to find a present from some mysterious benefactor.

From 2010 Buildup

We needed to get that up and put to use .

Breaking down the previous grass in ‘storage’, we began the final setup this evening.

From 2010 Buildup

(the orange dots on the grass are marks for torches later)

From 2010 Buildup

We still have a heck of a stack of corn left to distribute and probably about that much more grass left as well.

Well, there is the back yard still…

From 2010 Buildup

The Pumpkin Search continues, and other news.

Kyle’s mask is coming along. Got most of it sewn up and cut to fit. Just a few more modifications and some touchup painting left to do.

From 2010 Buildup

Talia has taken a disliking to the thing.

Debating whether to have him wear an “invisible” mask underneath or just rely on facepaint. I’m liking it, but thinking I could do a second much better. Might modify my methods and make a mask for me instead of the appliances I was planning on. I get claustrophobic in masks…badly. We’ll see…

The Pumpkin search made several strides today.

Our current price listing is as follows:

Day Farms: $.16/lb (best price on med-large sizes)
Maceys: $.19/lb
Home Depot: $4 ea
Walmart: *Varies by store. Seen them priced both by lb and by each. Averaging around $2.50 for a ‘normal’ size pumpkin
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Farm in Harrisville: $.50 1-5lb, $1 5-10lb, $2 10-15lb, $3 15-20lb, etc *will not discount for my purposes as he serves a couple schools and wont have enough.
Country Gardens Nursery: $.20/lb *Likes The Harvest idea, will discount to $.12/lb for my bulk order
Welch’s Produce, Nursery, and Handmade Gifts: $.20/lb *offered 25% discount ($.15/lb) for bulk order, but willing to haggle on that.

—I need to check with Day Farms about a bulk purchase.

But, the question now is, since I’m already doing a bulk purchase at a discount…any of you locally want to jump in on it? What’s a couple more pumpkins when I’m already ordering a ton? (possibly literally)