Due to the crazy weather, crazy schedules and the busy times of the upcoming holidays, the Mystery Cemetery Tours will begin in Spring 2014.

The Mystery Tours will be scheduled ahead of time, but participants won't know which cemetery we'll be visiting until the day of or at least not long before the tour date or time.

Suggestions for the Mystery Tours are currently being accepted. You may email your ideas to minda.epitaphsmag@gmail.com.

Maybe you're not a trained cemetery preservationist, but you want to help your local cemetery anyway. Here are three things anyone can do to help out.

1. Keep it clean. Whether you make a morning or afternoon of it, or just take a plastic bag with you the next time you head out to take photos at your favorite cemetery, there's always trash to pick up among the headstones and trees. Speaking of trees, you can also pick up sticks and move small branches out of pathways and off gravestones.

2. Volunteer at the office. If a cemetery has an office, there is always plenty of work to do. Potential projects may include photo databases, archival projects and data inputting. You can help out with cemetery events as a tour guide, staff assistant, etc. If gardening is your thing, you can offer to assist with gardening projects.

3. Research. You can research the history of the cemetery or the people interred there. Visit your local library or historical society to gather information. Search the Internet. Compile your findings electronically and share them with the cemetery.

Do you volunteer at a cemetery? What type of work have you done to help out?

Check out more funny signs at funkysigns.tumblr.com.

The Schlafly Brewery has branded one of their beers for the upcoming 2nd Annual Beer Baron's Tour at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. I personally seldom drink beer (or much of anything really), but I would love to have a bottle of their R.I.P. Rye India Pale Ale, complete with winged soul art on the label. How cool is that?

If you are in the St. Louis area, the tour will take place on Saturday, Oct. 19, from 1-4 p.m. Tickets are $40, and the proceeds will benefit the Friends of Bellefontaine Cemetery.

I wish I could be there, but my daughter's Daisy Troop is going to be in our local Halloween parade that weekend. Even a cool cemetery event won't drag me away from that.  :)