Thanksgiving Memories: The Manchester Road Race

For many Americans,  a traditional Thanksgiving morning is spent cheering on the home team at a football game. For my family, and many others in Connecticut and southern New England, we have a special tradition of our own, the Manchester Road Race. Since 1927 (with a hiatus of 10 years during the depression and WWII), [...]

Thanksgiving Tradition Trivia

Why do turkeys gobble?

Only male turkeys, or toms, can gobble, and they mostly do it in the spring and fall. It is a mating call and attracts the hens. Wild turkeys gobble at loud sounds and when they settle in for the night.
Can turkeys fly?
Turkeys raised on turkey farms cannot fly. Wild turkeys can fly [...]

Thanksgiving Traditions: How to Make Vegetarian Mincemeat

This morning over at Ravelry, member NicolaKnits posted a recipe for vegetarian mincemeat. She kindly consented to my posting it here. So this is her recipe, word for word.
Mincemeat (vegan and fat free)

3 cups dried currants
1.5 cups golden raisins
1.5 cups raisins
.75 cup candied peel
1 pound apples, peeled and finely chopped
2.5 cups sugar
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp [...]

It’s Halloween: An American Witch Bottle

Stories of American witch trials have been very much in the forefront of my mind this month, as I have done several programs on the topic at both of the museums at which I work. So it was especially interesting when  I came across an article written in 1980, but posted by  Archaeology.org today, about [...]

All Things Halloween

Tip Nut has a cool page listing all sorts of costumes, crafts, props, recipes, videos…..all things Halloween. Check it out here:
TipNut Halloween

Monday Morning Poem: The Old Stone House

by Walter de la Mare

Nothing on the grey roof, nothing on the brown,
Only a little greening where the rain drips down;
Nobody at the window, nobody at the door,
Only a little hollow which a foot once wore;
But still I tread on tiptoe, still tiptoe on I go,
Past nettles, porch, and weedy well, for oh, I know
A [...]

It’s Fall: A Little More Halloween Reading

Food for the Dead by Michael Bell
Scarier because it’s real……

New England folklorist Michael Bell spent some time in Eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island, interviewing people who still have direct connections to a little known outbreak of vampire beliefs a little more than 100 years ago. Food for the Dead, admirably researched, presents a series [...]

Thanksgiving Memories: The Cornucopia

Derived from the Latin Cornu = horn, Copia = abundance.
The cornucopia is a horn-shaped container overflowing with fruit, nuts, and vegetables. Its origin as a symbol of abundance comes from Greek mythology. Zeus was raised on goat’s milk by Amalthea. In gratitude, he gave her a goat’s horn that had the poser to grant the [...]

Monday Morning Poem: Fourth of July Night

by Carl Sandburg
The little boat at anchor in black water sat murmuring to the tall black sky
A white sky bomb fizzed on a black line.
A rocket hissed it’s red signature into the west.
Now a shower of Chinese fire alphabets,
A cry of flower pots broken in flames,
A long curve to a purple spray, three violet balloons—
Drips [...]

Monday Morning Poem: If there are any heavens my mother will

by E. E. Cummings
if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have 
one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses
my father will be(deep like a rose
tall like a rose)
standing near my
(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see
nothing [...]