Green Halloween - Ghosts, Goblins, and Green Goodies. South Burlington, Vermont

Green Halloween started in part, to address the health and declining well-being of children caused by poor eating habits. Holding a Green Halloween requires seeking green companies with organic, Fair Trade products. My addition to these criteria is harvesting local pumpkins grown in plots of putrid decomposition; these make the scariest Jack-o’-lanterns as they come off the vine already disfigured, looking like freshly hatched goblins with grotesque faces. 

Strange twisted vines slowly made their way out of the earth in our backyard this summer. I think the fertile fermenting piles of compost finally congealed into witches brew, 

                                         Now did the recipe call for a green frog or a brown frog?

 slowly intoxicating the tiny microbes within. All summer long, just  after midnight along with the usual stridulation of crickets, an occasional owl calling out who’s there, who’s there, and a solitary lonesome bat (possibly an escapee from a witch’s den)-the quietist of ever heard footsteps, hundreds of times quieter than a mouse, eerily broke out. Shortly thereafter, burrowing sounds like miniature moles digging tunnels leaving small mounds of glistening earth across the lawn.  Ghost farmers?

Even the fireflies looked ghastly this summer, drawing effervescent green trails in the night sky, spelling some non-human language of ominous preparations. Though the skywriting was undecipherable, one number was clear, 10.31, the date of Halloween. Out of this noxious mix of microbiological muck, spine-shivering sounds, and night-visions came the fast growing vines, everywhere but in the garden.

 Longer and longer, they grew, like dark green dragons, twisting, turning, and climbing bushes and trees, occasionally belting out large yellow flowers. Many a bee flew into those flowers; I never saw a single one fly out. Some say they turned into spirits and fairies only released in their new form on Halloween night. Instead of pollen, these winged workers forcibly worked the ghastly glowing green vile, drawn up the roots of the vine, into a diabolical concoction that emitted odorous flatulence.  From this graveyard-shift distillery, evolved first a green bulb, then a small melon, green and oblong like zucchini, at the same time orange with a stem of a pumpkin. Sharon Meyer of Wcax guessed it a “zucchipunk” or maybe a “zuccomelon” its cousin.

Legend has it, zuccomelon not wholly eaten

will stain the hand green forevermore.

 

Trick-or-Treaters, you will have a trick or a treat depending on what you grab when you blindly reach deep into the bag at our door on Halloween night. Will you grasp Swirly Kiwi Green Lollipops, Green Sixlets Candy, Green Agave Sticks or green sour beans? Or, will you be one of the few lucky ones who feel the smooth sticky sweet chunky flesh of a Goblin Zuccomelon? If so, savor every bite, for legend has it, zuccomelon not wholly eaten will stain the hand green forevermore. 

Make your Halloween Green and Clean, and litter-free, good for people, planet, and the community.  In addition, be sure to pack plenty of Halloween dental floss. Oh and maybe some Pink Pepto-Bismol or more appropriately for Green Halloween, stock up on Little Tummys Gripe Water-the herbal supplement with ginger and Fennel for relief of gas & stomach discomfort. Look for the puke green label.  

Read more on how to enjoy your Green Halloween @

 http://www.greenamerica.org/livinggreen/Green-Halloween-chocolate-costumes-events-nontoxic-paint.cfm and http://www.greenhalloween.org/content.php?page=faq 

Explore great ghastly graveyards for growing Jack-O-Lanterns @   http://www.paranormalhaze.com/8-creepy-graveyards/