Haunted Homestead

Last weekend was "Haunted Homestead", the Halloween program that the Outdoor Education runs jointly with the 1812 Homestead Farm and Museum. Despite the rainy weather, we had a great turn out, and we hope that all of our visitors had fun!

One of the main components of the program is the hay maze that we set up in the main barn at the Homestead. It's quite an endeavor to build---approximately 400 bales of hay, arranged into a maze that traverses 2 stories of the barn, all structurally reinforced with re-bar and braced with cross beams across the top...and then decorated with scary scenes at every turn! In the end we had a maze that, according to reviews, was pretty terrifying.

We also had a "haunted hayride" through the woods of the homestead. Along the trail riders encountered (or were attacked by) a homicidal clown, and doctor who killed his patients, a chainsaw serial killer, a living scarecrow, Sasquatch, and a few other scary folks as well. We were especially pleased to have the Drama Club from the Willsboro Central School working with us on the hayride this year---they set up a cannibal scene that, based on the screams that always came when the wagon went past their station, was one of the highlights of the hayride.

In addition to the volunteers from the Drama Club, we were also happy to have the freshman class from Willsboro Central School join us to run the concession stand. Proceeds from concession sales went to the class as part of their fundraising efforts for class trips.

All in all, it was a great event. Thanks to everyone who came, and all of our volunteers!

(If you were wondering what that picture at the top of the post was...it was a gibbet that we constructed to hang along the hayride trail. Gibbets were iron cages that were used to display the bodies of executed criminals. The gibbets were commonly hung along highways and waterways as a deterrent to other would-be criminals. Brian had the idea to make a gibbet for Haunted Homestead last year, but we weren't able to pull it together in time, so he had hung onto the idea for this year. He was very proud of the end result.)