Recent News 2005



Welcome,
This year has not been the best of us. A series of
unfortunate events has befallen our family. Starting
in late July, my sisters home was hit by a tornado.
It did a lot of damage to her yard and some to the
house. No one was hurt so that was a good thing. Well,
two days later our home was hit by lightning. It did
several thousand dollars worth of damage. The insurance
company had a fit. ( More about them later ) About 2
weeks later my sister ( same one with tornado damage )
was taken to the hospital and we almost lost her to a
viral infection around her heart. She was in the hospital
for about a week and a half. She is home now and doing
much better. Then we had some pretty bad septic tank
problems. It took me a while, but I fixed it. Then to
top it all off.. The transmission in my wife's care
just went out. . Boy, what a summer...

With all that has gone on, we were unable to do much
with the barn to change it or upgrade it this year.
Not to mention the cost.. We figure last year, with
fixing up the barn and doing all the other work, plus
supplies it cost us about $1000. We received about $200
in donations from people parking in our field before
the Wheatland Music Festival and made about $150 from
the yard sale. The donations the nights we ran the barn
was about $80.. So.. Totals $1000 - $430 = $ 570 out of
pocket. This year the Wheatland parking donations made us
just under $100... And that is about it... Also last
year, we had help from some great friends of ours. Well,
this year, a couple of them got married and moved away,
another is getting married a few days after Halloween
and the others are not able to help because of other
commitments.

So, what is the future for The Haunted Barn? Well,
several of our friends and neighbors have asked us if
we were going to run it. Our original home owners
insurance ( who shall remain nameless at this time )
canceled our policy and we had to scramble to find
another. They said because we were operating a Haunted
House it was too much of a liability and I was told it
was too much like a business. Well, looking at our
budget, it is not much of business.. To us, it's a
combination of a hobby, and a love of a holiday based
on ancient traditions. A time when we invite our family,
friends and neighbors to our home and celebrate. What
about next year? The barn needs more repairs, we need
to look into a new type of insurance, and a few other
considerations need to be addressed. Who knows what
is in the cards.

We hope the new year brings you and your family good
health and good fortune.


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