Today’s blog is about what we did over Halloween weekend. Now don’t get excited, I realize that I’m a holiday behind, but I’ve been busy and I figured that I’d better get this written now before it’s TWO holidays behind. This year as I am sure that you are all aware, there were several things that were recommended to help keep trick-or-treating safe. Mary Anne and I always get a lot of trick-or-treaters at our cottage in Fairport Harbor so we considered these and decided to try to create a candy delivery chute to send candy down off of our porch into treat bags to keep everyone safer. I saw several of these online and I figure that I could make one out a cardboard tube from the store.
I looked around the store basement the week before Halloween and none of the tubes that I had were big enough. I changed my mind to a piece of PVC tube, which we had, but while I was looking through the plumbing section I saw the perfect tube. It was a 4 inch drainage tube that we had been shipped by mistake last year. I had never bothered to return it so there it sat. It was 10 foot long and GREEN! I hadn’t figured on this but it set the wheels turning.
What could I do with a green tube that was Halloweeny? I’ve got it, a snake! I sketched a snake’s mouth (fangs included!) on one end of the pipe and got out my jigsaw. The soft plastic pipe cut easily and soon I had a mouth on the pipe. I detailed the mouth and added scales freehand with some spray paint and then set it by my electric shop heater to get the paint good and dry in time.
When we got the snake up to Fairport (good thing Mary Anne has a station wagon!) I trimmed it to length and taped it to the front step handrail. I had just enough time to carve a couple of pumpkins to set it off and the trick-or-treaters were on their way. We had a great time passing out candy and the kids thought it was cool. Several people commented on it and some even took pictures to show to folks back home. It sure worked out great, and I’m sure that the pipe will never be missed, at the Old Hardware Store…
