Leaf It to Me
Plant material that due to the reduced light, lack of nutrients, and less water of the autumn season starts to break down chlorophyll, causing their green color to fade, exposing other pigments of color such as yellow, red, orange, and brown.
What are leaves?
True or false: Almost every part of a pumpkin is edible.
What is true?
The American town most famous in witch history, hosting the witch trials in the 1690s.
What is Salem?
An ancient Celtic tradition to observe the changing of light and celebrate the harvest. Ancient Celts experienced this time as a thinning of the veil between the physical and the spiritual, taking the time to spiritually reflect.
What is Samhain?
Statistically the most popular American holiday.
What is Thanksgiving?
A special autumnal full moon that gets its name from the schedule and labor distribution between farmers as they battle the sun for more time to work in the fields.
What is the Harvest Moon?
TELL ME MORE: Typically, the moon rises about an hour later each night, but around the autumn equinox the angle of the Moon’s orbit and the tilt of the Earth line up exactly right and cause the moon to rise only about 20 to 30 minutes later each night for several nights in a row. These extra minutes allow farmers more time to work in the fields while still arriving home before the frost and chill of the night set in after the sun sets.
Pumpkin's botanical family, with other members like delicata, acorn, and butternut.
What is the squash family?
The animal, according to European folklore, that was considered to be a witch's familiar or helper.
What is a black cat?
The central heroine to one of the world's most famous fall myths--the Greek goddess of spring who is captured by Hades and taken to the underworld.
Who is Persephone?
The US president that made Thanksgiving a national holiday.
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
Earth's geomagnetic activity is twice as frequent during the fall, making it a peak time to spot these beauties in the sky, particularly in the far North.
What are auroras?
True or false: Pumpkins are composed of about 70% water.
What is false?
[They're composed of about 90% water]
The main reason women were accused of witchcraft in the Middle Ages.
What is having magical powers?
Persephone's mother, whose mourning over her daughter's abduction by Hades caused crops to wither.
Who is Demeter, the goddess of harvest?
BONUS: Zeus brokered a deal: Persephone would spend half the year with Hades and the other half on Earth, explaining the cycle of seasons, with her time in the Underworld coinciding with autumn and winter.
The US state that has the most turkeys.
What is Minnesota?
A giant Mayan pyramid located in Mexico, built in honor of the autumn equinox. On the equinox, because of the relationship between the sun and the pyramid, it looks as if a snake made of light slithers down the pyramid’s steps.
What is Chichen Itza?
The Greek root word for pumpkin, meaning "large melon".
What is "pepon"?
The most common ingredient in what accusers of witches called "witch potions" during the medieval times.
What is "eye of newt" (mustard seeds)?
The first name of Mary Shelley's famed scientist, Frankenstein, who creates a sentient creature from assembled body parts but, horrified by its appearance, abandons it. The isolated and mistreated Creature vows revenge, resulting in the deaths of this scientist's loved ones.
What is Victor?
What is the second Monday of October?
A small bird of the family Paridae that grows and shrinks parts of its hippocampus to remember where it hid seeds in the fall when winter comes.
What is the black-capped chickadee?
What are mats?
The title of the book published in 1487 in Europe to spread the fear of witches.
What is "Malleus Maleficarum" (Hammer of Witches)?
The man from Irish myths that Jack-o-lanterns originate from. He repeatedly tricks the devil, and when Jack dies, he is denied entry into both heaven and hell. The devil gives him a piece of burning coal to light his way as he wanders the Earth forever. Jack places the coal inside a carved-out turnip to carry it. In Ireland and Scotland, people carved menacing faces into turnips and potatoes to scare away Jack's wandering spirit.
Who is Stingy Jack?
[Bonus fact: When Irish immigrants arrived in the U.S., they adopted the custom using pumpkins, which were more readily available.]
The animal that was given to President Calvin Coolidge on Thanksgiving in 1926 that he officially pardoned, keeping the animal as a pet instead of eating it, as he and his wife, Grace, were known animal lovers who often received such unconventional gifts.
What is a raccoon?