Fog rolls over the
headstones almost concealing the glowing green footprints that lead up the stairs of the
Masonic Lodge haunted house. Local business men and women gather their packets of candy
and prepare for a carnival. Kids climb over huge bales of hay and watch pigs race before
they choose a pumpkin.
“Hey look,” one young boy calls to his friend. “I found one that glows in
the dark.” From scary spooks
to pumpkin patches, local buinesses and community groups are in preperation for another
season of spooky characters.
French Prairie Gardens will provide hay rides, pig races, corn and hay mazes, farm
animals to pet and a pumpkin patch for kids to search for orange or glow-in-the-dark
pumpkins to carve. The farm is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today (Saturday) and 10 a.m. to
5 p.m. Sunday. The farm is located at 17673 French Prairie Road in St. Paul.
The events cost $5 per person. Pumpkins are sold seperately.
But events don’t end on the farm.
Kris Horn, president of the Newberg Downtown Association, said the Downtown
Trick-or-Treat has been going on for at least a decade thanks to the successful
cooperation of several organizations.
“I was always kind of amazed it kind of happened,” she said. “All we
do really is the photo fest in Francis Square.”
The downtown association will set up during the general trick-or-treat which will
be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
“We’ll be taking pitures of all the little hobgoblins and
princesses,” Horn said. There is a $1 suggested donation for each photo to help to
cover the cost. The YMCA will join the downtown association in the square this year.
Members of the Masonic lodge have spent many hours in the last few days putting
together a haunted house. The group hopes to see the event, which was revived last year,
become an annual one, said Michael Thompson, worshipfull master at the lodge.
The house will feature a mummy, a maze, a gypsy fortune teller, a scary bat and a
head on a platter and will be suitable for chuildren of all ages. The event will be held
from 4 to 10 p.m. today (Saturday) and 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday at 402 E. Sheridan St.
Thompson said the group will radio to each other the ages of the children as they
come through to minimize the fright for the little ones. The cost to get into the house
will be $3 or three cans of food which will be donated to Newberg F.I.S.H. (Friends in
Service to Humanity). |
