Frog on the Pumpkin

I just love this idea! http://www.audubon.org/news/pumpkin-bird-feeder-makes-happy-harvest-birds

....and bears, and giraffes. Anyway, here is a cute distraction. Our local zoo gives many of the animals pumpkins in October.  Here is a video of their reactions.

And some more love from our local paper the Portland Tribune. http://portlandtribune.com/pt/11-features/327171-206386-something-wicked-this-way-comes

one of our friends and neighbors has a great blog and did a cool write up on the Davis Graveyard http://www.bjdorr.com/201610256554

Hal is sitting on the hightest place on the property, watching the yard and the people.  Basically doing his job. BTW - no, he did not do that damage.  The planter is on it's side on purpose and they yard is supposed to look overgrown and a mess. Second week in November.....big dumpster for yard debris and a pressure washer are in my future.

It is a black cat....and at night it glows in the dark. WTH?!?!?? I do not usually buy decorations from chain stores anymore.  I prefer to support my friends that make stuff :) But when I saw this cat, I had to have it. Needs a name BTW - Hal does not appear to be happy about this situation.

I can't go on forever, and I don't really want to try.  So who can I trust to run the factory when I leave and take care of the Oompa Loompas for me?  Not a grown up.  A grown up would want to do everything his own way, not mine. So that's why I decided a long time ago that I had to find a child. RIP Mr. Wilder. You will forever the magical part of my childhood.

Dor, the Angry Cat. She has her own facebook page because all the pictures of her look like she wants you all to DIE. But mostly she just hides and sleeps. That is until I have to get out this very large section of black fabric to sew for a projection effect backdrop........ .....then I cannot get rid of her. Cats..... I feel a nap is order This fabric needs more cat fur...just my opinion. What?????

such devotion in a droid before.' RIP - Kenny Baker Davis Graveyard tombstone new for 2016 I has a sad now.

...don;t believe that for a second. Last year one of the crew started making baby demons.  Fun and creative, they look cute hanging around the abbey. So we taught how to make them at HAuNTcon  and West Coast Haunters Convention this past year. And then she made some more.  They are adorable.

(shaking my head) Oh Portland, you never cease to entertain me. We really are a group of weird people.   And I love you. Even when you do something silly like put blood pudding in your ice cream. I kid you not. Salt & Straw (a local Portland fav for ice cream) has announced it's Halloween flavors.   And you guessed it, one of them has blood in it. Some days it is really good to be vegetarian. I give you Dracula's Blood Pudding .   The ice cream includes real blood.  For those of you that do no know what blood pudding is.....that is what google is for.  It is disgusting, trust me. If that is not enough they say it has a 'hint of chicken liver' OMG - you have got to be fucking kidding me!!!!!  Who would do something like that to ice cream?!?!? (sound of frog queen get out of her chair and running away) I am back now, good thing my office is close to the bathroom.  I think I just lost my appetite for ice cream for the rest of my...

to get me bath stuff.  Because if you know me, you know that I have a large soaking tub upstairs that I basically live in in the winter time.  Love me a bubble bath. But I hate cheap bath products.  Those crappy gift sets they sell at Christmas....yeah, no. I really only love one bath product....well maybe two. My favorite by far is Lush bubble bars. Where is this going....... Look!  They got new Halloween stuff in stock! Pumpkin - Bath Bomb Bath-o'-lantern Monsters' Ball - Bath Bomb Multicolored mutant Sparkly Pumpkin - Bubble Bar Transform bath time into a ball Boo - Luxury Bath Melt One spicy spirit I am a big fan of the bubble bars and bath melts so I will be getting several of both.  I have tried the sparkly pumpkin,  I heard you gasp!  'The frog queen touched something sparkly?  Isn't that a sign of the apocalypse?*" It comes wrapped in plastic. So I am safe....

that there has to be a perfectly good explanation for this. I tell myself.......I will not dial 911 , There is no one in the house.....I imagined it. ...but I still cannot get out of my mind that as clear as day, I heard two men talking, and it sounded like they were in the house. I am still surprised at how much it startled me. I have been working at home for years now, and never really worried about being safe in the house.....so I must be making this up. Here is what happened. So, I am working on some Etsy/Put a Skull On It, stuff in the basement, and I am just about to head upstairs for something. Then I hear it...... ......very short exchange of words from two guys......' something, something ' then "okay, yeah". I am home alone all day, so I know there is no one in the house. I am not expecting any repair people until tomorrow. Even though I know I imagined it. I had to. I am a little wary going up the stairs. This is silly, I te...

then walk through a spider web. Last night I had a nightmare. I am just walking through a hedge maze at night during a full moon, as most people do, and all of a sudden I see this HUGE web and spider in my path...... ......okay, that is not true, it just sounds better that what really happened, I kid you not, I was walking through the maze and then out of the corner of my eye I see a spider kinda hanging in front of me off to my left.  Not a particularly big spider mind you, now that I think about it I am not sure if it was a spider, could have been a small leaf or something..... .....I could have walked around it, or at least tried, but I turned back, just in case it jumped on me (shudder) or something.  Just to be safe. I turn around and there is a guy running full tilt at me with an axe....again, not true, it was a shovel, but an axe sounds  better that what really happened . Anyway, I turn back around and see the tiny spider, then back around to the axe...

From Portland's own Voodoo Donuts

We are very humbled and honored by this award. Thank you. Who knew that 30 years ago, when we lived in California and worked on a home haunt with our work friends and family that the path would lead us here. First of all we want the thank the Haunted Attraction Association for nominating and choosing us for the first Home Haunter Award from the association. It has been a very long journey with our great crew and family who have supported us and kept us going and inspired to create something we are all very proud of. We want to thank the home haunter community who have welcomed us and inspired us through the journey. We love you all and appreciate your enthusiasm and energy. We would not be here today with out the family, crew, community and people who have supported us. Special thanks to our friends and family that have been so supportive over the years. Leonard and Jeannie Pickel, from the first HAuNTcon we attended in 2006 until today, you both have always supported our...

We got rid of a lot of props this last year, so I guess while we were busy one of the crew, or the EAD  (Evil Artistic Director)- who knows let the baby demons out of the shop. We were going to wait until they were older and more mature to make sure they did not get in any trouble....but that didn't happen, so they got out and spent the whole month of October hanging in the abbey just high enough we could not reach them to get them back in the shop. Demons....nothing but trouble!  In that good kinda way....you need demons and we can show you how to make them. This was a great project headed up by one of the crew.  If you like these little guys and you are going to be at HAuNTcon in Birmingham the end of the month, sign up now....this class is selling out fast!

Reminded me that this year we have to make a difficult tombstone for a lot of the crew who are Terry Prachett fans. Since there were so many quotes we could use and we could not chose, one of the crew came up with the brilliant idea to use his family crest. So I will leave you with his words....this sums up his sense of humor in his writing perfectly:

Sorry these are a bit late.....but the is what the Graveyard looks like in December.

The Davis Graveyard seems to have acquired a shop cat :) She was my neighbors cat until they got a new dog.....she apparently hates the dog and has made her home in the upstairs play room of the shop. She is the sweetest cat, that loves when we are hanging after a build day up in the shop.  She is currently getting less attention, but appears to be staying.  So welcome MoMo to the Davis Graveyard. BTW - Hal, the Halloween Cat, is not amused.

We always start building right after West Coast Haunters Convention.  This year not only did we start building props, but we put one in the yard.  She was going to go into a tree and need her arms out and her dress to flow so she had to be made on the ground. Since she is a statue we could not have her wrisits ope (since a statue would not be carved that way) so we attached her hands and filled the wrisits with expanding foam and sanded it out to look like she is a carved statue. We wanted this to look like a statue that had been taken over by the tree and vines.  So in June, we placed 'The Lady in the Tree' in the tree outside the front door and started to move the wisteria vines on the tree to grow around her. The vines grew around her all summer and died back a bit in the fall. But the effect was just what we were looking for. The statue was based on this picture by the INCREDIBLE photographer Dan Westfall Unlike many of the other props we did not ...