New Year's Traditions

POMEGRANATE (Photo:Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 4.0 Wikimedia Commons)

For many, the first meal of the new year is a very important one while for others there are a variety of traditions. They  generate wishes for the new year to bring hope, riches, and travel. Or they may be just a celebration of light at this seasonal time of year.

PORK & SAUERKRAUT

A Pennsylvania Dutch tradition is pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day to have good luck and growth in the new year. Pigs (pork) represent progress and forward movement as they root forward unlike other animals who scratch backward. Sauerkraut, made from round, green cabbage, may represent money while the long pieces of sauerkraut suggest a long life.

FIREWORKS & OLIEBOLLEN

In the Netherlands, like almost everywhere across the world, fireworks and explosions are a highlight. There is a traditional treat, oliebollen, that mimics the Faschnacts that show up on Shrove Tuesday in Pennsylvania. These are “oil cakes” or small bite-sized fried dough balls dipped in powdered sugar. 

BLACK-EYED PEAS & COLLARDS

A U.S. Southern tradition, eating black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's Day, will bring good luck and prosperity.  The peas carry good luck  while the collards, being green, may bring money.  One tradition common in the United States is that each person at the meal should leave three peas on their plate to ensure that the New Year will be filled with luck, fortune and romance.

Hoppin' John is a recipe that features black-eyed peas, and is now a favorite staple of Southern food. If, after the New Year's Day meal, you have leftovers they are called Skippin' Jenny.

GRAPES

In Spain eating 12 grapes during the last minutes before the New Year begins brings good luck. Eat one on each of the chimes at midnight.

ONIONS, POMEGRANATES & CAKE

In Greece hanging an onion outside the door signals prosperity, good luck, abundance, and rebirth. On New Year’s Day, parents may wake children by tapping them on the head with the onion. Breaking a pomegranate also brings luck, the more scattered seeds, the more prosperity.

Another customary Greek tradition is consuming Vasilopita, or Saint Basil’s cake. This cake is baked with a silver or gold coin inside, and whoever finds the coin in their slice is considered especially lucky in the coming year.

SMUDGING

The word smudge comes from the Middle English word smogen -to smother with smoke. For thousands of years, recorded back to the days of the pharaohs in Egypt, smoke from burning materials has been used for a variety of spiritual, ceremonial, medicinal purposes, and cleansing. During the rise of the New Age culture during the 1970's and '80's, the Native American practice of smudging was appropriated for various uses and celebrations. Smudging a space, usually a home, on New Year’s Day is thought to cleanse the area of any bad spirits and negativity and prepare a place for the new year to start fresh. Most often white sage is used but other herbs can be added or used separately.

HOGMANAY & “FIRST- FOOTING”

In Scotland, New Year’s Eve is a big night celebrating the winter solstice as well as the beginning of the new year. There are the usual bonfires, torches, and fireworks.

There are Hogmanay is what we Scots call New Year's Eve - 31 December - the big night that marks the arrival of the new year. Its origins reach back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Vikings with wild parties in late December.

Many festivals and celebrations include torches and bonfires celebrating the return of seasonal light. At midnight it is traditional to sing “Auld Lang Syne”.  

One of the unique traditions is known as  “first-footing.” The first person to cross the threshold should bring a gift of luck. According to the custom, the first person who crosses the threshold of a person’s home should bring a gift of luck. Traditionally, this gift was a coal for the fire or This was traditionally a piece of coal to wish for warmth but has widened out to include the addition shortbread to wish for food, a silver coin for wealth, and a bit of whiskey for good cheer.  

MISTLETOE

In Ireland, it's customary for single gals to put mistletoe under their pillows on New Year’s Eve to dream of their future husbands. Many cultures have picked up the practice of hanging mistletoe encouraging love and kisses.  

SUITCASES, MONEY & LENTILS

In Columbia, the traditions stand for wishes – for fortune, prosperity, travel and, of course, luck. Partygoers may arrive with empty suitcases looking for the coming year to include travel while others carry money in their pockets to bring prosperity.

Maybe originating in Europe, carrying lentils in your pockets is supposed to symbolize a prosperous new year.

WHITE FLOWERS In Rio de Janeiro, New Year's Eve revellers wear white and throw white flowers into the sea as part of Festa de Iemanjá, the goddess of the sea.

NEW YEAR'S PLANT GIFT

No doubt started by the horticultural industry, giving a plant as a gift is for the New Year may be a living symbol of good tidings and fresh beginnings. It isn’t any one species of plant. The recipient would most likely appreciate something unusual. It should be something that stands apart from the ordinary.

WHAT PLANT WOULD YOU GIVE AS A NEW YEAR GIFT & WHY?

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2024 WINTER SOLSTICE

Chambersburg, PA
Winter Solstice on Thursday, December 21, 2024
Winter Solstice Sunrise - 7:29 AM

Winter Solstice Sunset:- 4:49 PM

This is an astronomical event that occurs because our world is tilted on its orbit around the sun, a fact that explains the seasons in our temperate zones. The shortest day and the longest night of the year. It marks a turn in the seasons as the length of the days get longer.

IF THE DAYS ARE LONGER WHY IS IT SO COLD?

The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang reports that “even though daylight slowly increases after the solstice, many places don’t see their coldest days until mid-January. This happens because the Northern Hemisphere continues to lose more heat than it gains for several more weeks. The oceans – which take longer than land to heat up and cool down – play a role in this seasonal temperature lag. Only after the Northern Hemisphere starts to receive more solar energy than it loses do average temperatures begin their upward ascent.” 

Doug Wenztel of Penn States Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center says there’s a bright side as well. This is an opportunity to go out and explore your local areas and see a different landscape. Each year the Center has a Winter Solstice Stroll.

A walk along a favorite summertime wooded path reveals the shapes of trees and their branching patterns. Sit still and quiet for 15 minutes and soon you will see the birds that stay with us all winter. Discover mosses and evergreen ground covers nestled against the rocks near the path or check the edges of a pond for ice crystals. Think about the bit of shelter they provide for wintering birds as they perch among the rattling leaves, away from winter’s wind.

WHY ARE THERE STILL LEAVES ON THE TREES?

You most likely will hear the rustle and rattle of dead leaves still clinging to the branches of some trees. Kathleen V. Salisbury, Extension Educator, asks,  "Have you ever noticed some trees hang on to their leaves after all the other have colored up and fallen to the ground?"  in her article "Why Do You Just Keep Me Hanging On?"

 “…there's a reason why some leaves keep on hanging on all winter. Marcescence (use it 3 times in a sentence today and you own this word!) is the term for this winter retention of leaves. Beech and oak are deciduous native trees, losing their leaves each fall. But young beech, as well as their cousins [the] oaks, not to mention musclewood, witchhazels and parrotia, hang on to some of their leaves throughout the winter. They are marcescent.

In the fall trees create a separation zone (abscission layer) between petiole (leaf stem) and branch. If the separation layer is complete, the leaves will drop to the ground, to add nutrients to the root zone as they decompose. 

Trees shed their leaves to prepare for harsh winter conditions by conserving valuable resources. They create this separation zone so the falling leaves do not damage the plant in the process of shedding. Marcescent trees do not form this abscission layer completely and so some of the leaves hang on through the winter.”

~ Carol Kagan, Master Gardener

References:

The Washington Post: Winter Begins Today-Answers About the Solstice

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/12/21/winter-begins-today-five-questions-and-answers-about-the-solstice/?arc404=true

Penn State: Winter Solstice Walk 2022

https://www.facebook.com/shaverscreek/winter-solstice-stroll/wentzel/819053985832668/

PennState: Why Do You Just Keep Me Hanging On? 
https://extension.psu.edu/why-do-you-just-keep-me-hanging-on

Pennsylvania State Climatologist: Greencastle, PA Max/Min Daily Temp: 12/21/2023 to 03/19/2024

https://climate.met.psu.edu/data/ida/index.php?t=3&x=cwop_hourly&id=CW4362

Weather Atlas: Monthly Average Temperatures

https://www.weather-atlas.com/en/pennsylvania-usa/mont-alto-climate

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I Write - An Unusual Character

 My writing group has monthly writing prompts. Here's my part true and part fiction writing for An Unusual Character

Duke Devlin

Prologue

After visiting the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts, Bethel being the home of Woodstock, my husband asked, jokingly, “I wonder if anyone stayed and never left?”

That question called for a Google search.

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I Ain’t Stayin’ Long 

    In 1969, Duke Devlin, 26, was living on an Amarillo, Texas, commune. The heat was thick and dry. Some chairs and benches were strewn about in the cool spots under the low hanging branches of a honey mesquite tree. He was sitting in a creaky old rocker dressed in dirty overalls, a sweat-soaked t- shirt, and a tattered cowboy hat pulled low in front. His friend Ezra came along, scooched a bench over, sat, and stretched his legs out.

    “So, Duke, I’m chasing good leads for some jobs on the pipeline in Alaska. That’s gonna be quite a trip from here upta there. I’d want company to travel and there’d  be work for you, too. You interested?”

    “Yeah. I reckon I am. Got no plans now. Cooler than here, I ‘spose.”

    “Well, I won’t hear back until the end of next week, maybe a bit more. I’ll meet you here when I get back and I hope we’ll be heading north.”

    Duke was still sitting in the rocker later that day when another friend, Ritchie, drifted into the shade.

“Hey, Duke. I’m headed to Pennsylvania to visit my girlfriend. I need a travelling companion. Can you come along with me? I got some dollars to get vittles and such.”

    “Since I ain’t got no work seems everybody wants to drag me along where they’re going. I’ll go but I ain’t stayin’ long. Gotta be back here soon.”

    They set out, hitching rides. A VW van painted with colored flowers, hearts, and peace signs, pulled up.  The scent of pot floated out as a girl rolled down the window and offered a ride. They were headed to a music festival in New York, “3 Days of Peace & Music.” Duke and Ritchie rode along, lazing in the back on Mexican blankets and looking up at swirling, whirling colors and shapes on the ceiling. They got out on Route 40 in Nashville and hitched on to Pennsylvania.

    Ritchie discovered that long distance romance was near impossible. His girl had moved without telling him. He was down and needed a pick-me-up.

   “Let’s head up to that music festival. They said there would be some good music. Maybe catch a buzz or two. It should be fun.”

      “Well, okay,” said Duke, “but I ain’t stayin’ long. I gotta get back home. Might be some good work waitin’ for me.”

    They hitched up toward Woodstock but learned along the way that the festival was moved to a dairy farm in Bethel. Another car headed that way picked them up. As they got closer, traffic was at a standstill, gridlocked. They decided to walk in.

Woodstock Festival (Photo: Culturetrip.com)

   

   Once they got there the crowd was huge. Organizers expected 50,000 but 450,000 showed up. They got separated and Duke only had a few dollars in his pocket. Lured by the aroma of grilling burgers and hot dogs, he slogged through the muddy field until he found the food truck.  As the concert started he was offered work at the food truck. All you could eat and $2 an hour. He was in. When he had a break, there was always an open invitation to crash in someone’s tent or under a tarp. He enjoyed the music and the atmosphere. Despite mud and overcrowding, the nearly half million people were peaceful.

    When the concert was over, Duke stayed around to help clean up the grounds, salvaging some of tents, tarps, and other items left there. Yet, he still didn’t leave. He set up a small camp near the edge of the field and enjoyed a bit of celebrity in Bethel after everyone left. Strolling into a local bar they’d say “Hey, hippie, you still here? Set him up a beer.”

    He took odd jobs around town then a job at the dairy farm. He wanted to make enough money to head back south, but the beauty of the area and the friendly people held him. He met a girl and got married. He became the man who never left Woodstock. 

    In 1989, 20 years after the festival, a French reporter caught up to Duke for an interview with the hippie who never left. The interview was widely published and lots of people started coming to the Bethel site. Shortly after, a charitable organization purchased the site and put on a small show. Duke was asked to get involved, telling stories and walking people around.  

Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts
(Photo courtesy CDTrips.com)

    The show was a success, and this led to the creation of the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts. A special monument was placed at the edge of the Woodstock field. Duke was hired to be the Center’s Site Interpreter and for years he would give golf cart tours to performers scheduled for the Center. At other times he could be found sitting at the monument, reminiscing, and sharing little known facts about the bands, the people, and the event.

    He may have said “I ain’t stayin’ long” but he didn’t retire until 2016 when he headed back to Texas.

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PASSIONFLOWER -- MAYPOP

Passionflower  (Passiflora incarnata)

The Franklin County Herb Demo Garden has a beautiful Passionflower vine. During our fall cleanup we found the Maypop fruit among the leaves. It was not fully ripe. It tasted both sweet and tart. You may eat the seeds. Very interesting. Here’s some TRiViA facts:

Maypop is a common name for this vine because of the loud popping sound made when the fruits are stepped on.

Maypop is the fruit. 
Usually wrinkled when ripe.

The fruit pulp is both sweet and tart and somewhat like tropical fruit. It can be made into jam or jelly, some baked goods, and ice cream. It is flavoring for homebrews, kombucha, wine, or drinking vinegar.

Each unique flower lasts about one day, appearing in the summer and early fall. 

It grows well vertically on a trellis or against a wall or fence.

Although thought to be an annual in Zone 6 it has proven to be a dependable perennial in Zones 5-9. It is native to the southeast U.S. and Central America.

 Fire Risk: This plant has an extreme flammability rating and should not be planted within the defensible space of your home. Select plants with a low flammability rating for the sites nearest your home.  -NCarolina Extension 

Grown on a trellis in the herb garden

This is a good native and pollinator plant attracting hummingbirds and butterflies in the summer and fall. For other wildlife, the foliage provides good, dense cover year-round. It is somewhat deer resistant. 

Passionflower vine can become a pest and invasive weed. When they escape cultivation they can become problematic weed in areas such as no-till agronomic crops, pastures, hay fields, and roadsides. Due to their thick, deep rhizomes, mechanical or cultural control can be very difficult. - Univ Missouri

The passionflower blossom, especially the flower of the purple passion fruit (P. edulis), is often used to symbolize events in the last hours of the life of Jesus Christ. Other plant parts may represent other people or events at that time.

CKagan, Master Gardener

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Three Sisters Autumn Soup

Three Sisters Soup
Corn, Beans, & Pumpkin

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Gingko Trees -Living Fossils

 

(Photo: The Spruce Adrienne Legault)

Gingko Trees (Ginkgo biloba)

We are into leaf drop season big time. I posited that the geneticist that can figure out how to get a tree to drop all its leaves at once might make a fortune. Annie-Rae posted “Don't gingkos do that? Means the scientists have a chance to solve this puzzle!” Yes, to a certain extent.

1.    1. The leaves turn yellow in the fall, depending on the cultivar varying from chartreuse to gold.  The leaves will drop overnight after a hard frost, and all the leaves on entire tree drop almost all at once.

 2. Ginkgo is considered to be a “living fossil,” dating back to the Jurassic period. It was nearly extinct when Chinese Buddhist monks cultivated it in their mountain monasteries and preserved the species.  

3.      Ginkgo trees are long-lived with a life span of upwards of 1000 years.  The oldest specimen in China is believed to be 3500 years old.

 4. One of the most appealing features of ginkgo trees is the three-inch fan-shaped leaves. The appearance is similar to the maidenhair fern, giving rise to their common name, Maidenhair Tree. 

5.      Unfortunately, in late autumn, the dirty secret that female ginkgo trees hide is revealed. The “fruit” produced by female ginkgo trees is foul smelling (has been compared to rancid butter or animal excrement) and is dropped in the fall following the first frost. Though immature when dropped, the embryos within the fruit continue to mature on the ground for up to two months afterwards. This means that anyone unfortunate enough to step on the fruit during that time is exposed to its pungent odor.

 6.      Extreme caution should be used when selecting ginkgo trees for landscape ornamentals or for street trees since there is no way to discern a male from a female at the seedling stage. Several “Boys Only” cultivars have been developed such as ‘Autumn Gold’ or ‘Lakeview’ to ensure that you do not end up with a Ginkgo Stinky Seeds yard or street when the trees begin to fruit.

CKagan, Master Gardener

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Thanks to Carol Shirk, Extension Dodge County, University of Wisconsin, Madison (1-4) and Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources (5-6)

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Interested in herbs? Looking for a gift?

Perfect for a hostess gift, or birthday or housewarming.

And there is a price reduction as we head into the holiday season.

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Just click this link to find it.