Westlake Family’s Decorated Scarecrow Has Become Local Fixture
After about 10 years of planting, tending and harvesting a garden that seemed to grow larger each year, Westlake residents Robert and Sue Moss decided to add a bit of decorative whimsy to their garden area with a scarecrow.
“I had a pair of my dad’s old overalls, filled them with straw, and set it up, with a crow on top of one shoulder,” Robert says.
They decided to dress the scarecrow up in a Santa hat and coat for Christmas one year, not knowing it would be the beginning of a tradition that’s gained them some notoriety in the community.
Now, years later, the Mosses’ scarecrow sports clothes and accessories to celebrate a wide variety of holidays, much to the delight of passersby on the busy road that the Mosses home is situated on, between Moss Bluff and Westlake.
“People stuck in that heavy traffic have a lot of time to enjoy the scarecrow,” Robert quips.
They don’t just enjoy the view, though, says Sue.
“People get out and take pictures,” she says. “They pull over and ask questions. They honk their horns as they pass. We get cards in the mail about the scarecrow.”
While at the moment the Moss scarecrow is decked out in Halloween attire and covered in a huge spider web crawling with huge black spiders, he’s been outfitted for the Fourth of July (dressed as Uncle Sam), Mardi Gras (sporting a huge Mardi Gras mask, beads, and a traditional purple-and-green Mardi Gras reveler tunic), Cinco de Mayo (wearing a sombrero and serape, and carrying maracas in one hand), and Easter (with bunny head and ears, and wearing a pink bunny footed outfit). He’s even carried New Orleans Saints banners and flags.
Decorating the scarecrow is often a family affair, say Robert and Sue, with their granddaughters helping out. Since the scarecrow itself has been built, it’s not really a time-consuming task.
The hard part, Robert says, is finding the outfits, particularly the heads.
“The Cinco de Mayo head was actually a Dora the Explorer mask, of the Spanish character (in the cartoon),” he says. “It’s always hardest to find the head. You have to find something big enough so it’s easily seen and people know what it is.”
Of course, he says, the Mardi Gras head was the easiest to do — there’s no shortage of large Mardi Gras masks available during the period between Christmas and Fat Tuesday.
The most difficult scarecrow? That would be the Easter Bunny, Robert and Sue agree.
“It was hard putting that bunny rabbit suit on a scarecrow,” Robert says.
No matter how difficult, Robert says, the scarecrows are always fun to design and decorate. And they try never to do the same decoration each year for a holiday.
“We’re always looking for different things to dress him in,” says Robert.
While they’re busy coming up with new decorating schemes and clothing, they’re enjoying seeing how much the public appreciates their efforts, and they’re having fun with it.
When the scarecrow was decked out as the Easter Bunny, for instance, Robert would walk out, stand in front of the scarecrow, and strike the same pose — put his arms and legs in the same position. People loved the photo op, he says.
“It’s fun laughing at all of the people who come by and freak out about (the scarecrow),” he says.
The biggest question they get, says Sue, is about what they are planning for the next holiday.
They haven’t received any requests to see the scarecrow decked out for holidays other than the major ones, says Robert, “but it would be fun to be challenged.”
“We didn’t do this intentionally,” says Sue. “It just kind of mushroomed.”
But the Mosses seem delighted to have stumbled onto something that gives others so much enjoyment.
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