Warding off evil at home- haint blue, jack-o-lanterns and bottle trees

Great Haint Blue porch from franklinpainting.com

Tis the season to to protect the home and hearth from ghosts, ghouls and goblins. Historically, keeping out spirits was a year around battle. The best protections was to keep them from entering the home through windows and doors, scare them away or to capturing them in the yard.

Common to the Southern United States is a shade of blue that was painted on porch ceilings and inside window frames. This color was intended to prevent ghosts, commonly called "haints" a derivation of haunts, from entering the home through the openings. It is a lovely shade of sky blue that rather extends the sky onto the porch. Perhaps that is how it ward off evil spirits, at night the porch looks like day and everyone know spirits called haunt you during the day. Haint Blue on the porch gives even the most modern home a historic context and feels like a cool drink of water on a hot day.

Carving ghoulish faces in fall vegetables are common in many parts of the world. Typically the indigenous vegetables are placed outside the home to scare away the local goblins! Of course pumpkins are common in the States, however, in Europe, large turnips and rutabagas are used. Pumpkins are not just for Autumn, the color is flattering to all skin tones and makes a lovely color for gathering places like family rooms and dining rooms.

From Walterreeves.com

Capturing spirits before they get to your house and are warded off by your haint blue. Bottletrees were originally designed to capture spirits by hanging bottles from trees or by placing the bottles on ends branches. With so many colors of bottles available, the bottletrees create a stain glass effect in your lawn. Driving in the country, often the bottles are blue. Perhaps there in a correlation between the haint blue and the blue bottles Or maybe, people in the country use a lot of Phillips milk of magnesia.