On October 31 of last year, it slammed into Snug Harbor like a pissed off freight train. Maybe if the storm had swept through there wouldn’t have been as much to clean up. But it hung out for a while, drank too much, and generally made an ass of itself.

Shadow Wood’s one and only hotel was a particularly pitiful mess on the morning of November first, which fired up public opinion and fueled the political will to resurrect this historic … structure. The refurbishment project began in August, closing two north-bound lanes of a nearby interstate for no apparent reason, and was successfully completed weeks later.

Updates include a fully-collapsible roof, removable corner dressings, and well-placed interior carriage bolts to lash to the 4′ rebar anchor posts that keep this thing from wandering off again.

Category: Halloween, Stuff   Tags: mausoleum

Happy Halloween, and see you in November.

Category: Halloween   Tags: anxiety gardens, cemetery, crow, Grim Sisters, grumble, mausoleum, scarecrow, Witches

Barometers collapsed and kitchen weather witches crashed into cupboards all across the Midwest United States yesterday, as a huge low pressure front stormed through, set meteorological records, and generally tore up the place.

Barometric pressure readings, like 28.3″ near International Falls, MN, were at Category 3 hurricane levels. The last time we saw conditions like this, the Edmund Fitzgerald paid the price.

It got exciting, and a little scary, in the Louisville area for a few minutes. “T’was the witch of November come stealing.” But overall we ended up not being hit very hard.

At Snug Harbor, of course, five days before Halloween, everything is relative.

Category: Halloween   Tags: anxiety gardens, mausoleum, storm

Anyone think that this disaster can be saved?

Our mausoleum roof is deteriorating rapidly from a bad case of the wasgonnas. I was gonna break it down and stack on the deck behind the house. I was gonna throw a tarp over it.

Yeah, I know. Bla bla bla. What did I expect? Fine. I got it. But can it be saved?

The roof is 1/4″ plywood. If I bring it inside and dry it out, I’m wondering if there is enough integrity left in the material that it can be glued and mashed back together. After that, it could be covered with a waterproof laminate.

It’s pretty squishy, so I’m not optimistic. Moisture is probably all that’s holding it together right now and it’s a good bet it will turn to dust after it dries out.

What we have here is an object lesson in “Oh, it’ll be fine”.
It almost never will.

Category: Stuff   Tags: mausoleum, plywood