+- Pack Goat Central (https://www.packgoatcentral.com/forums)
+-- Forum: News (https://www.packgoatcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=18)
+--- Forum: News and Events (https://www.packgoatcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=22)
+--- Thread: Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse (/showthread.php?tid=1876)
Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse - Nanno - 11-01-2016
Rye had its annual "Halloween Town" celebration last night and we at Goat-O-Rama did not shirk our duty! Phil and I spent the last week planning, wiring, lighting, sewing, painting, and fabricating to turn our little goat wagon into a haunted hearse complete with glowing skeletons. It turned out even better than I'd hoped, and several kids were afraid to reach their trembling hands into that green-glowing coffin and take their trick-or-treat candy!
A lot of the kids couldn't have cared less about the candy--they just wanted to pet the goats! I was a funeral home director's wife or something. I wore my steampunk dress and an old-fashioned veiled hat. I painted my face into a sort of skull. I did not, however, wear my shiny spike-heeled witch's boots! I decided that comfort trumps fashion and wore my black and white sneakers with striped stockings.
Phil took wire and white christmas lights and threaded them all through our skeleton driver so he would "glow in the dark". He gave off a very spooky, ghoulish glow.
Phil placed eerie green lights inside the coffin for a nice zombie effect.
Phil dressed as a funeral home director. I love the big fake chains we attached to our traces.
Of course, it's always hard to get good pictures of these things. When it's bright enough to see the carriage, it's too bright to see the lights; and when it's dark enough to see the lights, you can't see much else. Our driver shows up very nicely here, but nothing else does.
I love this trick-or-treater bathed in the purple glow of the hearse lights.
Finn and Sputnik were very well behaved for such a scary event. I took charge of the goats while Phil manned the candy station. The first thing that happened was about four kids ran up to Sputnik and all tried to hug him at once. He did not care for it and was jumpy when we got going again. As we made our way up Main Street through the noisy, flashing, masked, and crazy-looking crowd Sputnik got more and more unsettled to the point where he wouldn't stand still when we tried to stop and pass out candy. He was causing the hearse to jolt suddenly forward and back which was not at all safe, so we had to get him out of there and take a breather. We took the boys to a dark, quiet side street where we walked and trotted just once up and back. By the time we got onto Main Street again, Sputnik had recovered and was ready to face the excitement. He was calm and well-behaved for the rest of the evening.
Finn, as always, was a huge sponge for every bit of attention thrown at him and never objected to standing still for long stretches while kids hugged him, fawned over him, and even kissed him. One little girl insisted on giving Finn some of her candy and tried to feed him a lollipop. Her mother and I grabbed it away just in time. So of course she ran back to her candy bucket and picked out another one. She was so determined to share her candy with the goats that I finally told her to go back and pick out a Tootsie Roll because at least those don't have sticks. Her mother also made sure this candy was unwrapped before letting her daughter feed it to the goats. Finn loved the candy but Sputnik preferred to stick with animal crackers.
It's amazing how observant the goats are even in a distracting, crowded, dark place. At one point Phil left his post behind the hearse and ran across the road to buy us some hot dogs. I didn't realize the goats had been paying him any attention back there. After all, they could probably barely see him! But as soon as Phil trotted off, both boys whipped their heads around and Sputnik started baa-aa-ing. They were calm and good, but they kept their eyes glued to Phil the whole time and were relieved when he returned.
RE: Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse - Charlie Horse - 11-01-2016
Goats are a little more jumpy at night. At least my Victoria sure is-- Especially in the forest.
I use glow-donuts on their collars so I can spot them in the dark, so they're used to glowing things. The horses arent so cool with glowing monster eyes in the dark.
The costumes turned out great. I did nothing for Halloween this year. Its gotten pretty lame around here. The kids do "trunk-or-treat" in the school parking lot and nobody comes to the door. The adults do all the fancy costumes and the kids get the 12 dollar walmart costumes. Frankly I'm not sure their costumes are worth a jolly rancher. Show me something good like the goat hearse and you get a snickers.
RE: Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse - Nanno - 11-01-2016
"Trunk or Treat" is basically what happens here now too. But for our community it's great because we're so small and spread out. They block off the Main Street crossroads in Rye and people park along the road with their cars while families walk up and down and get candy. We couldn't really do Halloween before they started "Halloween Town" because no one would come to a place like ours that's so out of the way, and until Halloween Town, the parties in our community were a little lame and not usually held in goat-friendly venues.
RE: Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse - Nanno - 11-01-2017
Phil and I attended Rye "Halloween Town" again this year but left the goat-drawn hearse at home this time. We like to mix things up, so a 9-foot inflatable dragon was our showpiece this year. I originally planned to bring the cart and give rides to kids, but we had so much stuff in our truck already that I decided not to bring one more thing. I also planned to bring Tigerlily as my wizard sidekick (she almost looks like a unicorn), but Phil was worried that she would mess up the truck on the way to town and we wanted a nice clean pickup bed to put the dragon in. Sputnik is the only goat who reliably controls himself while riding in the truck, so Sputnik came to Halloween Town with us.
I wrapped Sputnik's horns in "lightning" vetwrap but he wore no other costume. He did all his dress-up duty for the year at State Fair when I made him wear a humiliating chicken suit. I was a wizard. I chose this because it was a very cold evening and I needed a very warm costume. I stayed nice and toasty.
Phil was an executioner. He was warm except for his hands. He forgot to bring gloves. The kids were terrified of this costume! Many of them would start toward the candy and then freeze in their tracks and just stare at Phil with their mouths open until he spoke to them.
I thought the truck looked pretty awesome. The lighted skeleton that we made last year to "drive" our hearse looked great laying at the feet of our vicious man-eating dragon. We used the coffin from last year's hearse as our candy holder. Green and purple lights adorned the coffin inside and out, and another skeleton guarded the candy. Some of the kids were just as afraid to take candy out of the coffin as they were to approach Phil and the fire breathing dragon!
We had some really fun pumpkins this year. We went to a corn maze and pumpkin patch on Sunday with my family and the specialty pumpkins were free. We picked out a few gnarly ones, including a ghoulish green one, a pumpkin that looked like it had cancer, one that had green warts, and a "red warty thing" pumpkin (yes, that's its official name!). We also carved some normal pumpkins into jack o' lanterns, and they looked pretty cool once darkness fell.
The skeleton got creepy in the dark too. We had our fog machine going for an eerie effect.
Our truck after dark.
Sputnik did not have a very good time, unfortunately. He did ok at first, but early in the evening he got mobbed by about six kids at once and he freaked out. I took him for a walk in some out-of-the way places, but he never really settled down. He's used to having Finn by his side and he reverted to his younger, skittish self. He didn't want to be touched at all but was overly eager to perform tricks and get treats. He's usually not rude about treats, but he was last night, especially after I introduced him to the candy! He was ok with most of the costumes, but one full-body T-Rex suit freaked him out. He got pretty loud for a while but since it amused the crowd I guess it was ok. Someone said they thought the dragon was roaring, but it was just Sputnik hollering from behind the truck. On the plus side, he never messed the sidewalk but politely did his business in the grass.
RE: Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse - Charlie Horse - 11-02-2017
LOL imagine that-- A goat afraid of something that looks exactly like the meanest critter ever to walk the earth. He probably remembered what the T-Rex did to the goat in Jurassic Park.
RE: Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse - Nanno - 11-02-2017
That may be exactly what he remembers! However, the dinosaur came off looking more like this, so I'm not sure where Sputnik's abject terror came from.
RE: Rye Halloween Town and the Goat-O-Rama Hearse - DownUnder Gal - 11-02-2017
Wow, what a lot of fun - you guys look great! Where did you get the inflatable dragon from Nanno? I know very well how loud Sputnik can holler, he did that in my ear in the back of your truck on the way from the campground to Alpine Gulch at the Rendy. That boy has an impressive set of lungs
