Laume's Studio

It seems people assumed the photos in my last post were from my own yard. Even my own mother thought so! I'd love to say it was true (don't you all want to own your very own hearse like the one the parking attendant was driving!?), but except for the giant spider (who is crawling on a spooky...er, SPIKY flowering quince just next to the front door), the rest of the images are from a family who run a haunted house at their home each year.

Here's a bigger view of some of the characters I photographed.

Well, they did have a haunted house, or rather, a "yard haunt" until this year when they had to scale their display down considerably. It used to go all round their yard, through their side and back yards, and into their empty lot next door with nine or ten different scenes. This year it was all only two smaller scenes in the front yard and porch of the house and one larger scene in the front of the lot next door.


Here's a close up of one (well, two) of multiple signs that they had scattered about the display. I wondered about the signs when we stopped to take photos a couple of days ago, so when we went back tonight to trick-or-treat I asked the homeowner, someone we are acquainted with on a somewhat peripheral basis (I think they had kids who played some sport with some of our kids) and he told us that he'd been both vandalized and harassed by both neighbors and the city for having "trash" (meaning the decorations) in his yard. Sheesh. Some people just have their panties in a twist. I won't go on and on. I guess it's all handled for now. Hopefully he'll be back next year. All I can say is, for a yard full of trash, there sure were a lot of people visiting it.

We took a few more photos tonight.

The butler greeted us on the porch with a selection of beverages.

And of course there's always that one guest that gets drunk and drives his haunted carriage through the graveyard.

And a few Dia de Los Muertos spirits showed up early for the party. Or perhaps.... who could this be? If you head over to Beach Treasure, I think things will become clearer.

"Are all the spooks and ghouls gone yet Mom?"