In reply to 8Blades:
My understanding is that static properties are, as you mentioned, created during elaboration. This makes sense, because you can access them even if you never create an object of the class. When you create an object handle dynamically, you create all the non-static (automatic) properties.
Static methods can be called without an object of the class as well, just like the class properties. Note the static methods can only access other static methods and properties from the class definition. It makes sense though, nothing else exists until you create an object.