Bobbing for apples

My nephew had fun bobbing for apples on the deck this past weekend. He has to grab the stem since he doesn't have any front teeth. Afterwards, we had a fire and he roasted marshmallows. A great fall weekend for all of us.

Full Hunter’s Moon

Here's a photo just before dark of the "Hunter's Moon". The haze is actually smoke from wildfires that have been smoldering. Rain is predicted which hopefully will put out the fires and end the drought. The photo is quite pretty, despite the dire conditions which created it.
From The Old Farmer's Almanac: "The Full Hunter’s Moon, which occurs this year on October 22, is always the first full Moon following autumn’s Harvest Moon.
In pioneer days, after the vegetables were stored for the winter, it was time to go farther afield looking for wild game. Deer were fattening up, and Native Americans and farmers sought a store of good venison for the cold winter days to come."

Turkey Buzzard

There is hardly anything more graceful than a buzzard catching the morning thermals and spiraling ever upward. Nor, is there hardly anything as disgusting as a turkey vulture ripping apart a half decayed carcass.
There certainly seems to be an abundance of buzzards right now. I guess this is partially because of what seems to be increased road kill, partially due to deer season and partially due to the beginning of their migration.
I guess we have to overlook their disgusting diet and appearance on the ground because of their necessary garbage clean niche in the environment. At any rate, I do enjoy watching them ride the thermals.

Lifetime Influences

We have lost two people today who helped influence the way I see the world. Barbara Billingsley (photo above) and Benoit Mandelbrot (photo below). If you recognize these names it is obvious that they influenced me in totally different ways.
Barbara Billingsley was "leave it to Beaver's" mom, June Cleaver, who was the prototype mom of the '50's. And Benoit Mandelbrot was the mathematician who introduced us to fractals and a whole new way of looking at the world. I am grateful for what they taught me and will miss them.

Persimmon Seed Forecast

According to folklore you can predict the winter weather by cutting open persimmon seeds and see what kind of "eating utensil" is depicted inside.

Meaning of the “Eating Utensils”
* Knife – Signifies icy cold winter weather coming with wind that will cut through like a knife.
* Fork – Signifies a mild winter with light feathery snow in the outlook.
* Spoon – Signifies a lot of wet heavy snow to be shoveled.

My seeds mostly had spoons (last 2 rows), but the top row were rather flat spoons and could be described as fat knives. I only had one fork which is in the second row. The seeds seem consistent with AccuWeather's winter predictions (see below). I guess we will take what comes and see how accurate we were in the spring.

10-10-10

Today is the 10th of October 2010, or appropriately abbreviated as 10-10-10. As a old country boy, I have always associated the number 10-10-10 with a common purpose fertilizer. I didn't realize that in binary code it represented the answer to life, the universe, and everything until I visited the "How-to Geek blog. Live and learn, I guess. There are more interesting 10-10-10 articles at Mental Floss.

Hot and Cold

Two weeks ago it was 100 degrees. This morning it is 36 degrees with light frost. Katy Perry's song sums it up pretty well.