They Took One Piece and Ran!

51 degrees - Nice, sunny, cold, dry with old cobwebs to be collected.

It was a bit of a panic toward the end of the project as hurricane Sandy departed the area and devastated those unfortunate folks living north of us - we are thinking of you.  Sandy only gave me one full day of sun to setup the fake pillars, iron work, entry sign, dead branches, gravestones and markers, and all of the props that go along with Halloween.  I'll let the pictures from the last couple days do the talking.

The previous day of painting in the garage and out of the rain.

The only tombstone that I made from the foam material - need more time. 

I used a total of four paint colors that I mixed to create the faux effect on the pillars.

Bought this small skull and matched the tombstone colors.

The completed painting - tried to make them look real but aged.

Then, Nanna and Bobcat come down to scare the girls with their morning hair and to help setup on Halloween.  It was Bobcat's birthday too!

Happy birthday Bobcat.

Halloween morning happened too soon - yikes.  Time to set things up.

Leveling out the pillars and aligning them in case the city needs to do an inspection.

On the strait and level.

Nanna checking to see if she is out of film.

Okay, I've been asked several times over the past two weeks when is it going to be done and when am I going to finish decorating the playhouse.  I was then told that my daughters were planning to have friends over and everything needs to be done in time.  No pressure Dad.  Later on Halloween day I received a call from Devon saying that I need to pick her and her friends up from school because they are not all allowed to take the bus to our house.  A lot of running around ensued and finally they were back home helping with the bats and cobwebs.

Kids setting the candles in the grave glasses and spiders all around.

There's the old grey raven and even a crow sitting on the cross.

A very shallow grave.

Happy bats!

Getting ready for the first trick'or.

Yes, it got to be a little cold.

We are freezing!

Kids take their places to scare the little ones.

The plant even looks a little scary.

Greetings...come on in.

The kids did all of this.

Took the ladder away - don't want kids running up there during the evening.

Ahhhh...relaxing a little before it gets busy.

I think they saw this in a movie.

Snacks next to my picture...back when I smoked.

A little AB negative for those that don't scream or cry.

Great actors from the day.

Looking back it was obviously a fun day and I regret not taking any pictures of the many visitors that we had in our little cemetery.  I'll finish up this blog with a few pictures from the day of cleanup when the morning sun made things a little less frightening.

The morning after with the fire pit that kept us warm.

Still standing after the kids marched through.

Ready for the city inspection.

Now you can see the entry and the walk up the steps.

The Grey Raven Cemetery with lantern.

And now I look forward to next year when it will be 2013 and super scary.  Today we packed up the pillars and other items and moved everything up to the attic where it will sit and hopefully acquire a few new cobwebs over the next year.

Kate, Devon, Cece, Adriana, Lulu, Slim, Lauren and Frank.

And Athena who spent much of the evening in the tree - scary on a new level.

Thanks to all the little helpers...

I've been asking for help

64 degrees - hurricane Sandy is not in the area yet and I had dry but windy weather for most of the day.

Yes, I've been asking for help from the girls all week and finally I got some.

Get to work!

Over the past couple days I painted all of the pillars and the extra foam material that I have with paint from the home center that costs only seven dollars.  It was possibly mixed incorrectly for a customer but was now cheap and I like how it looks - mostly gray with a little hint of green, which will be a nice base coat for a concrete or stone facade.  I also found a great deal on flat black spray paint for only ninety seven cents per can.  It took me eleven cans to cover the iron fence.

Painted the faces, sides, bottom and back.

Took a while to paint all of this.

I thought about painting Lucy black but she just had a bath.

Iron fencing finally looking a little like actual iron.

If you know me you know how much I like the pile of scrap wood that I had sitting on two pallets and under a tarp in the driveway that was leftover from the Pointed Playhouse project last year.  Without any prodding from those I live with I went through the stack and hauled eighty percent of it to the curb where it will be picked up on Monday by the city.

Can't believe I kept all of this so long.

I then broke apart the wood from the pallets, which I wanted to use to make a couple wood grave markers.  The rough sawn lumber used in the pallets is perfect to give the markers an old look.  I printed out several examples from the Internet and ended up making my own pattern that is similar to one in the picture below.

You can see the shape that I was going for in this image.

It takes a long time harvesting the wood by removing the rusted nails and cutting off the checked ends before I can work with the power tools.  Once the wood was cleaned up I was able to draw a pattern on one piece and use that to duplicate what I wanted on the others.  A little sanding, gluing and nailing and the grave markers came together.

Stacked pieces cut and sanded with the rough side up.

Cutting at the band saw.

These are the remaining boards that may turn in to a couple more markers.

It started to rain a little as one of the bands of the hurricane brushed by Hampton Roads but I was able to take my level and run out front and pound the two crosses into the ground.  I then grabbed the wheel barrow and shovel and made it look like Halloween was approaching.

The first two of hopefully many grave markers.

The caretaker's house behind the graveyard.

Lots of work still to do.

Well, that's about all for now.  We are headed off to the Greek Festival tonight and hurricane Sandy will be getting closer over the next couple days.  I'll probably be applying paint to the pillars to make them look old, fabricating headstones, making a costume for Lauren and helping Devon decorate the caretaker's house over the coming days.  More later.

Suddenly there came a tapping

75 degrees - another beautiful day working on the cemetery, but first...

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more." -- E. A. Poe

I opened the garage door early this morning and immediately noticed that a raven came calling.  Actually, it is a crow but still an omen of things to come.  

Tap, tap...who's there?  Mr. Raven's cousin the crow.

Fast forward - later in the day the girls got off the bus and I began telling them that something really bad happened today.  I was attacked by an animal.  Of course they asked what happened and then I told them my Daddy truth - a raven come down from the sky and attacked me.  They quickly said that they don't believe me.  I then explained that I gave it a kick like in the Karate Kid movie and showed that bird who was more evolved.  They then said - sure...where is the raven.  I said it was over there in the trash and they went to go look.  They were amazed!
Okay back to mortal earth.  I printed a Fleur de Lis symbol that I found on the internet and enlarged it to a size that would be nice as a form in the center of the pillars.  The paper was glued to a piece of Russian Baltic birch plywood and I cut the pieces out on the band saw while listening to Fleetwood Mac with my hearing protection on.

Sanding after much time at the band saw.

Ready to go on the pillars.

I then glued and nailed the symbols onto the pillars, wiped the excess glue off and primed them with the white paint.

The next step in the instructions was to prepare the balusters, which had to be cut to length on both ends and ripped in half.  I created a jig to hold the pieces in my large cross cut sled that I built several years ago from wood that was found after a hurricane.  It took a little while to rip all of them because I had to stop the saw each time one was cut so that I could reset the sled and place a new baluster into the jig.

First the ends were cut to length and a point was created at the bottom.

Ripped in half down the middle.

A look at the jig in the sled.

Placing a fresh baluster in the jig.

A long board was then ripped into long pieces that are somewhat square similar to the dimensions of real iron fence material and then I did a little math to determine the placement of the balusters across these long strips of wood.  Two pieces were nailed at the bottom and one at the top to finish off a section of fencing.

Now you can see how much work this was but it is an important part of the cemetery fence.

The pillars and fencing was setup for the moment so that I can see how it is going to look.  The top fence run was attached to the pillars with an "L" bracket that can be easily removed for storage later.

Temporarily setup in the driveway - not enough room for a continuous run.

Looking down the fence - needs paint, cobwebs and frightened kids.

A closeup of the Fleur de Lis

Hello again.

I'm not sure how much time I will get away from work tomorrow.  I was called and emailed several times today and had to conduct another interview.  But Halloween is coming fast and all of this needs paint.  Not to mention the latest weather forecast that now shows that we will get a brushing from hurricane Sandy.

Take a right Sandy.

Oh well, I'll try to get as much done as I can but hope that the girls can do a little decorating in the playhouse too.  We should get rain on Saturday and Sunday and possible Monday and then high winds on Tuesday, which is really my setup day for the entire cemetery.  I may have to paint in the garage or possibly the screened in porch if I have no other choice.  We will see.