October 14, 2010 The scarecrow has been split into two separate props. I put the old head onto a skeleton body, and made a new head for the scarecrow. I may yet do some more finishing touches, but I just got done painting for the most part: The color match between the skull and body on the skeleton looks closer in person. Still not identical, but pretty good. And the tongue on the scarecrow is less blue in person, as it's speckled. The camera really picked it up.

October 6, 2010 I've fallen WAY behind this year. Usually I start on something before October, and post a few things here on the website over the course of the year. It may not be much, but I usually start the month with something already underway, so that when the big night arrives, I have a few new toys to play with. In 2005, I paint-aged Herb, and built the grave-plot and experimented with lighting for the first time. In 2006, I expanded the lighting considerably, built the scarecrow, started on a second skeleton (though didn't do much with him), bought the cauldron, made a set of artificial jack-o-lanterns, and put the talking skulls together. Whew. In 2007, I corpsed up that second skeleton and made him all crispy, and added the flying crank ghost. In 2008, I bought my piece-of-crap coffin, corpsed up a third skeleton, improved the lighting slightly, bought a cheap fence, and built the spooky tree. In 2009, I corpsed up the fourth skeleton. Since the FCG motor died, I replaced that right after the season wrapped up. And now, in 2010? So far I'm rigging up AC power so that I don't have to go around popping batteries on all those skeletons. I'm working on LED candles as well, so visually that might be the only new prop this year. It's a slow year. Last year was slow as well. Hopefully it'll pick up after I move.

October 2, 2010 First spook of the season. My window is haunted! Too bad the new FCG motor is very loud. The old one was silent, but died on Halloween night last year.