DR. WALLACE: Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and my sister and I want to decorate our family house, especially our home's front yard. To do this we need many things, especially pumpkins!

We did not decorate our home for Halloween since our family was out of town for that weekend. Now we are focused on Thanksgiving.

However, my dad wants us to just use some holiday flags we currently own, plus he is encouraging us to make some "homemade decorations" to use for our decor. And when we asked him to buy us a few pumpkins, he said that they are way too expensive this year to use just for a week or two of decorations!

I never knew pumpkins were expensive at all, but it's crazy how our father is holding his ground on this issue. Do you think he's "pulling our leg" about this, or are expensive pumpkins these days actually a thing? — Two sisters With Decor Plans, via email

TWO SISTERS WITH DECOR PLANS: Unfortunately, your father is correct on this issue as pumpkin prices have soared this season for a few reasons. The primary culprit in many of the primary "pumpkin growing" states such as Colorado, New Mexico and Texas was being "water-challenged." This caused many growers to lose about 20% of their previous yield, and the lower supply has led to higher prices.

Ironically, pumpkins and many similar gourds needed more water than usual due to extreme summer heat in many of the growing areas. The long stretches of hot and dry days robbed the pumpkin crops of cooler weather that is needed for the time of harvesting.

And pumpkins harvested in too much heat have a tendency to decompose during shipping, causing a further reduction in inventory.

If you really have your heart set on including pumpkins in your display, perhaps you could offer to do extra chores to raise the money or quickly look for a few babysitting jobs!

HOW CAN WE BEST HELP?

DR. WALLACE: I love the television show "Yellowstone" and it has inspired me and some of my friends as well to consider doing volunteer work for a charitable organization that helps to preserve our nation's wide-open spaces and the vast animal life that lives in the ecosystem.

But if a large national organization does not have offices in my smaller part of the country, perhaps my friends and I could put our efforts into fundraising for such a good cause.

What organization do you recommend that we check out first, and why? — A new Generation That Aims to Help, via email

A NEW GENERATION AIMING TO HELP: I commend you and your friends for thinking about such an important topic, and even more so for wishing to become proactively involved in symbiotic volunteer work in this genre.

I do have a recommendation for you. Please check out the National Wildlife Federation. This excellent organization quite effectively expands secure habitats adjacent to the famous Yellowstone National Park. This allows bison, bighorns, grizzly bears and other animals to have more free land to roam, and this keeps them farther away from commercial livestock.

They also defend our nation's laws and policies that protect our water, air and wildlife, in addition to safeguarding both wildlife and local communities to best live in harmony together.

And perhaps of special interest for you and your friends would be some of their proprietary programs such as "Garden for Wildlife" and "Eco-Schools USA." Visit www.nwf.org to garner more details and to start your journey toward making a difference with your personal efforts.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@thegreatestgift.com. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Mark Duffel at Unsplash