Halloween!

Special Green Halloween Tips!

Thanks to everyone who sent in ideas!

• Don't forget to roast your pumkin seeds and cook or compost your pumkin! If you don't want to cook or roast the seeds, then maybe your neighbor will! Recipies are on the web. It's easy to cook pumkin. Cut in half and put face down on a baking sheet for 1hr at 375F. Then you can do whatever you want with it. Many recipies. Easy and good.
• If you don’t already compost, Halloween is a great time to start. Many Halloween jack-o-lanterns end up in the trash, but they can biodegrade easily. Compost creates excellent soil for your garden and can help you grow a great pumkin next year. If you are interested in composting, we will have several composting workshops in coming months. We also have "Compost Doctors" who will help you understand how easy it is to keep your compost healthy. Worm composting is getting more and more popular. It can be done very neatly and is a great solution for offices and people who don't have a space for an outdoor composting bin. A good solution for winter too! email us to get on the list for our composting workshop to get started!
• Is anyone interested in setting up a costume donation pickup or trading program? email us if you'd like to make that happen.
• Rather than buy a new costume that will only wear once and be thrown away, make one out of clothes and fabrics you already have. You can also get terrific "costumes" at thrift shops and yard sales.
• Anyone with bales of hay can let us use them for mulch. Bring it to the riverbank or Water's garden.
• Remember, there's no such thing as "disposable." Wash and reuse as much as possible. Talking with others before-hand helps make this task a positive environmental project.
• Try to buy candy and drinks with the least packaging and especially to find healthy options. (idea for next year!)
• Recycle.
• It's a good time to try not to drive!
• Be safe! Happy Halloween!

Please email your ideas for our Green Thanksgiving tips and Green Gift Giving page!

Funny Halloween from Pete Leki

We had a funny Halloween on Hutchinson Street. First
the day was too beautiful, the sunset setting all the
tree a glowing, and streching out those last minutes
with crisp sweet air and wind tossing golden leaves. I
finished carving my pumpkin as the sun went down. Deb
had readied some treat: Hershey's kisses were the only
candy she found without transfats. So she also had
balloons and playdough and bubbles. But no one came
for a long time!
Finally little Rebecca came with her frog mama and
Daddy Pat and she got her goods and then nobody
came...
I thought I would have to eat all those kisses...
Then they came....
In great droves that decimated our stores, and sent
Jamal and I scurrying for random treats :
as soon as we started looking we found so many cool
things to give away : foriegn coins, key chain tape
measure, 6" rulers, tiny little animal figures :
Jamal went home to fetch some things and I had the
great thought, what about tricks? We had a basketfull
of used up votive candles, half pieces of chalk,
acorns...
How fun to give these mixed in, at least to the big
kids...
Then Jamal came back with a collection of 80's pop
music tapes, handy phrase book for salesmen, a
Japanese instruction manual, to large pink "first
mikes" for budding performers, a plastic devil with a
pop up head, dozens of cute earrings on cardboards, a
brush, a necklace, a mickey mouse cork bulletin
board...

We got to hand these things out to all the hilarious
kids who came by, many of whom were flabergasted and
didn't even know what an 80's hit tape was. The girl
who got the bulletin board looked dazed so I gave her
a couple chocolate kisses and an empty votive candle
container : Thanks, she said.

It was so fun to empty out our larders : we gave away
old McDonalds toys that accumulated, unopened in a
drawer, unicorn fashion pins....

As things slowed down a groucho marx and Pippi
Longstocking told us their was a witches fire on
Cullom and we should come. So we left Jamal and Deb
and I went to Cullom where, truly there was a warm
welcoming fire out from, in a cauldron, and wine and
songs and a whole group of friends...
And still the night air was cool and crisp and the sky
emerald and a half moon lighted our way home...

I think the spirits were in the air,,, and today we
remember them on Dia de los Muertos...
There is a beautiful ofrenda in the Waters Fieldhouse
please come and see it and leave a small offering, a
note, a nut, a flower to those who have passed on...

Pete