Category: Pop and Thistle

5 Ways To Celebrate and Support Honey Bees

Did you know honey bees are responsible for over 35% of the foods you eat, as well as the honey you enjoy? Honey bees are vital to the health of the planet and to the food chain, as they are necessary for pollinating more than 90 food crops including fruits, vegetables and nuts — plus …

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A Poem by Helen Keller

I am ghostwriting a few chapters on child development right now and found that I needed to fact check a few of the points that I was writing this weekend. I have boxes upon boxes of reference materials as well as all my notebooks and textbooks from when I was in college. I was extremely …

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Shinto by Jorge Luis Borges

Shinto When sorrow lays us lowfor a second we are savedby humble windfallsof the mindfulness or memory:the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,that face given back to us by a dream,the first jasmine of November,the endless yearning of the compass,a book we thought was lost,the throb of a hexameter,the slight key that opens …

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How Candy Apples Became a Halloween Staple

We knew if we went to Mrs. Payne’s house, she would always have candy apples to put in our trick-or-treat bags. In fact, we would go in to her dining room and walk over to her dining room table where all the bright red candy apples glistened on the table. We carefully chose the apple …

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What is Your Favorite Halloween Film?

Halloween Movie Recommendations from 4 Genres Do you enjoy the old scary classics with Vincent Price characters or movies about Dracula? Do you have fun with slasher films, or more modern scary movies such as the Haunting of Hill House? Or do you lean toward funny films such as Beetle Juice or Hocus Pocus? Let’s take a look at four …

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Halloween: Pagan Holiday or All in Fun?

Pagan Holiday or All in Fun?Halloween has Something for Everyone Trick or treat, kids and adults dressed up in costume, candy apples and haunted houses, today’s Halloween is not quite the same as Halloween of olden times. It wasn’t always as fun or as innocent as it is today. Halloween traces its origins back to …

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What’s Your Favorite Halloween Costume?

Is your house buzzing yet with the talk of Halloween and costumes? “What are you going to be for Halloween?” is a very common question this time of year. Well, have you thought about it? Or are you going to let the whole costume idea wait until the last minute? Sometimes the best costumes are …

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Make a Pumpkin Seed Garden Graveyard

Inspire the kids to do some fall indoor gardening with these pumpkin seed graveyards! They’re fun and simple to make, and when Halloween is over, top them with another layer of soil and water them to see if you can start some indoor pumpkins. Materials Pumpkin seeds Markers Planter or cup filled with soil Instructions …

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The Scarecrows of Halloweentown!

One of my favorite things about living in Halloweentown (AKA St. Helens, OR) are the scarecrows you will see around town.  The month long celebration of Halloween stemmed from the movie Halloweentown, which was filmed in the sleepy town of St. Helens, Oregon. Each year, starting on October 1st, the town comes alive with all different …

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Halloweentown is St. Helens, Oregon!

Many people are familiar with the movie Halloweentown, which is a 1998 Disney Channel movie about a 13 year old girl named Marnie Cromwell, which is a must-see kid and family friendly watch.  In the movie, the main character, Marni learns that she is a witch.  After finding this out, she helps save a town full of other …

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