Welcome to the Maple Grove Cemetery Blog!
Just a quick introduction - I'm Lisa & live in SE Michigan. Back in 2008, I bought a sheet of plywood and cut out some headstones to put in my yard and that's where it all began. It's grown & expanded ever since.
The Spouse is my idea man - he happily stays out of the way unless I specifically ask for thoughts, ideas or help. Then he dives in and makes it happen. We also have the Spawn (our daughter) and grandspawn that live with us. It's the Spawn's job to put the headstones out in the cemetery and now she's got her helpers (grandson is 5 1/2 and granddaughter will be 4 this month) to assist & add 2 degrees of difficulty to everything.
What you can expect during the countdown.... updates of the cemetery. Real cemetery explorations (one of my favorite things to do). Posts about various events that I'll be going to.
This, that & the other.
One of the things I love about Halloween is there are so many varieties and none of them are wrong! You can have 10 people in a room and get 10 different ideas of an "ideal" Halloween!
Personally - I love skeletons & cemeteries but I don't do blood & gore. Humor & wit is always good.
Anyhoo. OMG.
It's October!
.webp)
I feel VERY behind and VERY stressed!!
Normally I have everything out, cleaned up & repairs done before the Spawn's birthday on 9/28. We just exhumed the skeletons from the back corner of the garage last Saturday!
And honestly, this is the first year that I've been mildly concerned with where I'm going to store everything come November! I kind of went crazy with spending this year.
But will I control myself next year?
Probably not.
Oops.
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Speaking of storage...
Getting stuff out of storage is always an adventure. Headstones, some critter skeletons and the cemetery fence live in the shed. In the past couple years, we've been invaded by groundhogs, so there is dirt thrown all over in the shed. Yay. And nibble marks, but I'm not sure who from....
We also tend to see mice. Normally they're big enough to scoot out of the way, but these guys barely had their eyes open and almost got squished. So I had to relocate them to safety.
Blowmolds, the coffin & the "shack" are stored in the lean-to / add-on, whatever it is - behind the garage. It's about 4 feet deep and spans the width of the 2 car garage. We just replaced the doors a couple years ago, thanks to this episode....
I also have a YouTube channel. I need to post more regularly there.
Let me see. There was a stray box of smaller critter skeletons in the garage, too. And that's where things ended up as I bought things. Glad I keep a list so I know I got everything out!
I don't even both decorating inside the house anymore - the grandspawn are quite feral and I try to keep my things not broken. Maybe once they get out on their own..... I still have stuff for indoors, it just has stayed in their totes.
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I have a ton of skeletons. A literal shit ton of human bones, but the amount of critters is kind of insane. So I was going to have the Sanctuary for Anatomically Incorrect Animals as part of Maple Grove Cemetery this year - but it doesn't seem to fit. Funny, yes. But since we also made critter headstones, I don't know if it "works". So that remains to be seen.
Going to sign off for now - see you tomorrow!
I really love the badges for the Countdown this year!!
