2007

Check out the 2007 video, posted on google!

In 2007 the haunt was brought to a whole new level yet again! I started working on ideas and new props early in August. New props for the year include a monster in a box, thunder and lightning, a witch to brew potion in our 1/2 55gal drum cauldron, a partial toe-pincher coffin, new boarded up windows, and a couple of other small additions including a new haunt sign, 8 more tikis for the other side of the yard and some bones to adorn a freshly dug grave. In addition to that, some major additions were made ot the witch shop, 2 new shelves with about 30 new witch potion / ingredient bottles and all new labels, 3 styles of brooms, new wands, lanterns, and a couple of other small items were added.
I began to setup the haunt on Oct 20th. With the help of my friend's stepson Bruce and his friend Josh I was able to get the garage cleared out and we had the "walls" put up and some lumber cleared from the driveway. On the 27th my Niece Jessica and her boyfriend Mike came by and were a lot of help. We got the fencing, tombstones, and spider web put out. On the 28th Bruce and Josh joined me again and the PVC guys were put out and the witch shop was 80% finished. On the 30th I was up late setting up the blue flood lights and lightning spot lamps using the darkness of the night prior to take the time to adjust them so they would be ready to go. I used 3 across the main part of the yard and 1 for the other side, which differed from last year in that last year I had 4 for the main side and none on the other. It seems that the yard was much more balanced this way, especially with the additional tikis. On the 31st I spent all morning rigging the electrical items, put out the tiki torches and did a little more work in the witch shop, then in the afternoon I made an ice run for the chillers, picked up our former foster son and his mom and little brother who were coming to tot' in our neighborhood and finished up the witch shop and setup the foggers. Also that afternoon my neighbor had called the editor of the local town newspaper and he showed up with a photographer to ask a couple of questions and take some pictures - We got a full page article a week later. Click here to view the article
After things were situated I got into my jumpsuit as the "grounds keeper" and before I knew it there were tons of people streaming into the witch shop and I was handing out candy like a madman as the boys were out lighting candles - Mike even stopped by to help out for a little tough he couldn't stay due to prior commitments. After a while I was able to pass on the candy duty and mingled with some folks as I tried to capture some good video, keep candles lit, fog macines fed and the thunder and lightning booming. That was probably the most impressive part of the haunt, it worked perfectly! The two 150w flood lights filled the yard with light as the thunder crashed. I did have to reset the CD player a couple of times due to vibration induced errors (it was supported on some open-cell foam too) but other than that it was great, especially when there would be a lengthly pause and new arrivals were suddenly startled by a loud crash and flash. The MIB was also a pretty big hit, the sign placed out next to it as bait worked perfectly - as interested folks would walk up to it to read what it said the lid would leap into action and smoke poured out.
I tried placing the 100w continous fogger in the old trunk I picked up along with the chiller and it worked great for almost all night but towards the end it was smelling funny and hardly any fog was coming out at all, a quick inspection showed the whole inside of the box covered in condensed fog fluid - I'm not sure what happened for sure but I think the chiller's piping got some water in it from melting ice restricting it's flow and causing the fog to back up into the box, overheating the fogger. I haven't been able to take it apart yet to see what's going on, the pump runs but fog just barely comes out. The only other hiccup was the CD player I had to use to play Krough's 2006 graveyard ambient sounds wouldn't play a CDR and I had to go with just the thunder and lightning.
the turnout was pretty good - to keep track of tot's this year we bought a bag of 400 tootsie rolls and handed one out along with the other candy to every kid, and by that count we got about 240 tot's and we guess around 350-400 total visitors (including tot's, friends, teens, and parents) People seemed to be most impressed with the witch cauldron, many kids tried leaning into the pot to see what she was making. Sevreal times little ones commented on how "she's cookin' something" which was funny... and a couple of kids thought it was a real person at first. It's interesting how people's impressions changed from last year, we got very few commends about the FCG who worked flawlessly all evening (due to 4 hours of rigging and adjusting new rope types and pulley suspension) and we only got a few comments about the pumpkins (folks raved about them last year) I was also fortunate enough to have a former coworker make an hour long drive out with his wife to see the haunt and our daughter Lizzie, as well as another current coworker who brought over his girlfriend and her children who hadn't been tot'ing in 2 years! They were pretty excited and I was told they enjoyed themselves thoroughly. On a disappointing note, at the end of the evening we had no donations for the food drive, not one. I didn't advertise it but the box and sign was out for 2 weeks prior... one of our friends was there when we were discussing it after the haunt and magically a grocery bag full of items showed up by our mailbox the next morning.