Halloween 2008

Hope, Ben & Will Halloween 2008 Costumes
This year Hope was a cheetah and her brothers Ben & Will were a Ringwrath on it’s demon horse from Lord of the Rings. Halloween is a big creative project around here. Planning goes on all year and then starting October first the construction of costumes begins. Paper maché, wire frames, cloth, sewing, foam, articulated piping and other media are used to turn imagination into reality in time for the Barre Halloween parade. All this while we continue with fall construction projects, chores, homeschool and harvesting. October’s a busy month!

Bee & Clown
In Barre, the nearest large city (population 9,291) to us, holds an annual Halloween parade. The merchants on Main Street close early and stand out in front of their stores to pass out candy and greet the monsters who parade by from 4 pm to 5 pm.

Bob’s Camera Shop
Many of the merchants dress up too. This all adds to the festivities and fun.

Super Girl
Superman was wandering around somewhere too. Or was that a bird or plane I saw?

Horse at Merchants Bank
There’s that horse again!” I kept hearing people shout that out. Will and Ben drew quite a bit of attention.

iPod
Creativity with a cardboard box.

Pink Panther
Perhaps this was the Pink Panther’s cousin leaping across the street.

Granite Truck
That is one heavy duty costume! Actually, this is a common sight in Barre year round. We have granite quarries around here and Barre (pronounced Berry) has a long history of talented granite carvers. The waste granite is where we’ve gotten much of the construction material for our new cottage as well as fill for road and dam building.

Spiderman
Super heros are a popular theme.

Nelson True Value Hardware

Middle Ages Woman
This year I saw many more adults in costume than previous years.

Middle Aged Man
Many very creative costumes.

Wild Man
Sometimes it can be hard to tell if people are in costume or not.

Haunted House
The local hangout for spooks.

Cow Man and Cowboy at LACE
LACE stands for Local Agricultural Community Exchange which is the brain child of Arial Zevon. It is a combination indoors farmers market, cafe, food store and art gallery. If you ever come to Barre, check it out in the middle of Main Street.

Red Hair

Senior Citizen’s Center
There’s that damned horse again!

Simply Delicious Lady
What happens if you eat too many sweets.

Just Ducky

The Barre Subway

Three Gringos
I wondered what they were doing hanging out beside the bank with a gun…

Police Man #1
Fortunately there was a cop right around the corner!

Police Man #2
This little police man took bribes.

Police Man #3
This one’s costume was just a bit too perfect. Probably store bought. Not at all convincing. He did give me a good grin though.

Genie & Ghost

Young Lady in Stiches
Very interesting composition of shadows. I think this young lady may be the bride of Frankenstien.

Pair of Demons

Much Younger Demonette

Stone Cutter’s Brew House
Elvis is alive and well in Barre, Vermont! That’s him on the left. These are the folks at the brew pub where we get the boiled barley we use as a treat for our pigs. When they make beer they boil barley to extract the sugars which they then ferment to make the beer. This leaves buckets of boiled
barley. Smells great, just like barley soup, which I love – especially with mutton but don’t tell my sheep that, yet. Stone Cutters also sells our pork on their menu, our all natural pork hot dogs in particular. This means that if you eat our hot dogs and have a beer at Stone Cutters you get barley in both the pork and the stein!

Barre Green
The gazebo on the Barre Green is back with a newly polished roof. It’s been gone all summer while they made a new foundation and rebuilt the wooden structure. Lookin’ good! Barre has weekly music in the park at the gazebo on the green.

Witch and Princess

The Store Formally Known as Cheap Kids II
This used to be a really good used clothing and other things store that operated on consinement. We used to go there often. Now it is called “Women and Kids First”. Why bother alienating fathers? The new owners have a very strange attitude. We no longer shop there. We miss Janice, the previous owner.

Barre Times Argus Photographer
I figured it was only fair to photograph the photographer! He is from the Barre Times Argus newspaper and was collecting pictures for the next day’s edition. Hope was one of the cute kids he chose for the front page. She got a very big kick out of appearing in the newspaper!

Monster Man

Woopie Cushions

Art Gallery Folks

Werewolf

Crowd

Stock Broker
This guy might not be in costume. Perhaps he’s just down on his luck after the stock market crash. My guess is he was too small to be considered worth saving by the $700 billion government bailout. Bummer dude.

Crowd Crossing Street
Frankly the town should shut down Main Street for the one hour of the Halloween parade. Traffic slows to less than a crawl anyways. There are alternative detours. It would make it much safer for the children.

More Crowds Crossing
The town does shut down the road for the drag racing and home coming party. Maybe next year they’ll do it. I did notice that this year they had dozens of crossing guards which was new.

Strollers – Both Kinds

Witch and Dorothy!
Watch out! No! Careful! But no, she didn’t listen. And we all know how that story turned out. The witch had her house drop on her and her sister was melted by that wicked little girl. A shame that witches never listen.

Stilt Man
Jason of the Stone Cutter’s Brew House walking Main Street on his stilts.

Green Fairy
There were many fairies this year.

Witches and Axe Man
Scary!

Horse Crossing
There’s that horse again!

Mattress Witch
There were a lot of witches out and about. This one hides in the mattress store the rest of the year.

Princess & Clown

Cow #2

This is our friendly children’s librarian at the Aldrich Library in Barre. She was giving out pencils and candy. There seemed to be a preferences for the candy. Other years they’ve given out books which was greatly enjoyed by our kids.

After the Halloween parade we went to the Aldrich Library and listened to story telling, music and saw magic by Jennings & Ponder. A fitting end to a spooky evening.

Also see:
2005 Halloween
2007 Halloween
Will’s 2007 Halloween

Outdoors: 41°F/27°F Sunny
Farm House: 55°F/47°F
Tiny Cottage: 55°F/50°F

Also see:
Halloween 2015
Halloween 2014
Halloween 2013
Halloween 2012
Halloween 2011
Halloween 2010
Halloween 2009
Halloween 2008
Halloween 2007
Halloween 2006
Halloween 2005