Halfway to Halloween!!

Happy Half-o-ween!  

It's funny how different people have different ideas of what the halfway point is.  

Half of 365 is 182.5.  Today is 182 days - so close enough! 

I made up a "perpetual calendar" so I can always see right at a glance how many days to go.

 Moving on! 

I ordered a few things a while back, and the Spouse would put the boxes in the garage.  So, by the time I got home from work, I'd forgotten about them!   So, they stacked up and I got to open them all at once.  Now we're all caught up. 

First - I didn't think I needed any more skeletons (HA!!)

but I was poking around HalloweenCostumes.com and happened to see a 6' Frankenstein's monster skeleton on clearance!  

Regularly $90, on sale for $40, plus 15% off and some rewards?  Couldn't pass him up! 

Hey there!

My only issue is that his head is loose and spins around very easily. I'll have to fix that somehow.

And I don't even remember seeing IRL all the colors on the skull, but they're clearly there.  The picture on the website showed them much brighter. 

Next was this guy from Michael's. 

Had a $10 voucher that I needed to use and an online sale. 

He's 5' tall with the stake, so fairly substantial. 

Lastly - a couple years ago I got a white wooden cross from the dollar store.  You know, the kind you see on the side of the road, etc?   I wanted to get a couple more to add to the cemetery, to spruce up the look some.  Do you think I've been able to find any???   I looked at a couple different dollar stores last year, concentrating especially on the weeks leading up to Memorial Day and nothing.  

Then I searched & searched online and couldn't find any for less than $20!!

I don't know if I was using the wrong search words or what, but suddenly I found them for $7 at Walmart.   I grabbed them up in case they disappeared again!

I actually really like the sunflower one.  

I got 2 of each flower design.

I had planned to put them back in the box for storage, but 

Hurricane Grandson happened. 

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Thoughts to ponder..... 

Halloween is on a Friday this year.

Normally, the Spouse and I both take November 1 off work so we can take the cemetery down, move everything to the back yard and get the yard cleaned up.  Then we can put everything away at our leisure.

Do we continue that trend?  Or do we leave the cemetery up for the weekend and take Monday off work?  Not that we need any excuse to take time off work, but it would be easier because the Spawn and grandkids will be at daycare / school. 

OOooooooo - speaking of.....the grandson will be starting kindergarten this fall!  I wonder if his school will be having a Halloween party & costume parade?  Is that still a thing?  I sure hope so!  He'll be going to the same elementary school that his mom (aka the Spawn) attended, and I went to all of her's.  Can't wait to find out!

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I thought this was kind of funny.  I volunteer on a search & rescue team and each week our K9s train at different parks around the county.   This was found in a pavilion.  Somehow, I don't think this is the variety of human remains they were searching for! 

Since they all know about Chuck, 

I immediately commented back that all of my skeletons were accounted for!

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OH!  and let's acknowledge that May is also Cemetery Appreciation Month! 

 

Doing a quick Google search, it looks like Iowa is the only state that actually acknowledges it - good for them!  Iowa legislators created the State Association for the Preservation of Iowa Cemeteries in 1996 and their governor signed the proclamation.    Rhode Island also has an Advisory Commission on Historical Cemeteries... and apparently the town of Warwick gives you the opportunity to go on a cemetery scavenger hunt...????  That would be AWESEOME!!!! 

I wrote a post back in 2021 about the Seven Historical Cemeteries in the town where I live.  

Maybe it's time to revisit them? 

I found a nice post from the NecroTourist listing 30 ways to celebrate. 

So get out there and appreciate!! 

Cemetery Tuesday - Interesting Names, Maple Grove Edition

I love to explore cemeteries. I enjoy the art & history and peacefulness of them. And one also can't help but notice really unusual names. If they were current names, I probably wouldn't bat an eye, but you can't help but wonder how they came up with some of these back in the 1800s!

Also, my goal is to visit all of the 32 real Maple Grove Cemeteries in Michigan.  Last month, the Spouse & I visited # 21 & 22!    

I actually have many photos of headstones, so I narrowed it down to just a few from various Maple Groves.

Maple Grove, Free Soil

Davalen Sue Bell

Mahala Baxter

Elnathan Tobey

Maple Grove Fremont

Corydon "Coral" Edwards

Reo Vallier

Maple Grove, Harrison

Algernon S Young

Emeline Ryder

Ozro Brown

Maple Grove, Grawn

Alabama Thomas

Maple Grove, Greenland

Aale Maki

Myrtice Marie Mead

Liisa Knuutila

another thing unusual (to me) is how they wrote her dates....

they look like fractions!

These are just a few - I'll have to make another post for some of the other interesting names I've seen!

It's Autumn!!!!

Chuck also celebrates Truck Driver Appreciation!

Since I've worked for a trucking company over 24 years now.

So the Spawn and I were finishing up the epitaphs on the headstones after repainting...

I turned one of the stones around and found this guy....

He was gently relocated thru the back fence into our neighbors woodpile, since honestly - I think if I heard / felt / saw that body squish I would throw up! 

The Grandson and I went to the store one day and he asked me about listening to Halloween songs!  XM doesn't have the Halloween stations going yet, but I thought that it was funny that this song had just started, tho!

I apparently don't have pics, but I got the pieces cut out & painted to make the floodlight blinders - I don't know what else to call them!  This is my inspiration pic that I took while exploring Tillson St last year. 

Mine are pretty similar (I'm making 3) except the side pieces are the same size and will be put together with a V shaped top piece. 

I also got the headstone cut out & sealed for the Spouse's car that was in an accident this summer. 

It took a few sketches, but we finally settled on a shape that he liked.   I'll have that done probably today, weather permitting. 

Yesterday was Exhumation Day!

We dug the skeletons out of the back of the garage.  

So now this is what the patio looks like. 

We dodged raindrops putting stuff back into the garage, but the big guys are out! 

And we remembered that all the little skeletons were tossed in boxes with the cows. 

These are the ducklings, squirrels, a random turtle, bats, a piglet, puppy & kitten.

Oh, and an iguana.  And a piranha.  How did I end up with 2 owls? 

I'll have to do a full inventory just to see what I actually have. 

On the agenda for this week is taking the grandkids to the apple orchard Wednesday with their daycare classes because the Spawn, aka their mom, has to work at said daycare and they'd rather go with me than one of their teachers.  Then we need to get the blowmolds out, cleaned up and lights checked out (which I hate doing!!) and the critter skeletons out of the shed.

   

Because....

OMG!!

I feel behind already so do I really want to wait until this weekend to start setting up??

And just for fun, let's check the weather!

Of course this will change 783 times before Halloween actually gets here....

That looks to be pretty close to perfect!  Fingers crossed it stays that way!

But since we're in Michigan - we'll probably have a blizzard.  

Vacation!

Besides a trip to the Detroit Zoo on Labor Day - Chuck went on vacation!

 

His Michigan Hand-Map isn't as good as a real hand, but we decided to go spend a couple days in the Petoskey area.  

Just me & the Spouse (and Chuck!)

We got to the hotel Wednesday and if we leaned out over the balcony, we could see both the sunset and Little Traverse Bay. 

Right across the street was a local restaurant that claimed to have famous pumpkin pancakes - so I had to try them out.  

Fantastic! 

If you ever have the chance to go to JW Filmore's for breakfast - I highly recommend the biscuits & gravy!  

This bear has seen some things! 

Next we followed a Chuck's truck almost all the way to Petoskey State Park. 

Very soft sand!

This is also Little Traverse Bay. 

Still cold, tho! 

Next stop was Wilderness State Park, which isn't too far from Mackinaw City. 

This was a couple mile drive back into the park.  

We sat on the bench and enjoyed the breeze and sounds of the waves. 

This trail is off the parking area by the sign.  

If you look really close, you can see the Mackinac Bridge! 

Next we went thru this place called Cross Village and stopped to explore a couple cemeteries.  This one belongs to the Odawa (Ottawa) Indian tribe.  

It was actually sort of creepy, since none of the white crosses had names, and other than the few military stones, the few actual stones all belonged to women.  And a lot of crosses were in the woods!  

We made our first trip to Spirit Halloween!

It's really early in the year, but we drove the Tunnel of Trees.

It's only about 5% color, but still nice. 

We drove down toward Charlevoix and stopped at an overlook area called Big Rock Site.

It was really windy! 

The breeze off Lake Michigan was strong!

We took advantage of our state park pass and went to visit Fisherman's Island State Park. 

Waiting for the Spouse to catch up....

We finally started getting cold. 

So we went and got ice cream!

We are here!

We checked off 2 more of the real Maple Grove cemeteries in the state. 

There are 32!  

We've been to all the purple ones. 

When we got home, I thought I'd better start getting some decorations out in the front yard. 

I love this sign!

I'll put a couple more things out here & there - the skeletons are going to be dug out of the garage this weekend.  Hopefully me & the Spawn will have all the headstones painted and can get them out of the way.  Right now they're scattered all over the patio.  The plan is to start official set up on the 28th/29th.

Oh, good news!

The Disco Ball Skeleton finally came in!

And since we have literally 4 truck (or trunk) or treat events to attend this year, it's going to get some exposure!   It's a fabulous!

OMG - 45 days!!