Woodworth: Turkey bones, tweets and recycled crayons
The Pleiades and the Hyades of Taurus lie on the eastern horizon well after dark, announcing the middle autumn in the northern hemisphere. Nonetheless, summer's Milky Way is still almost directly overhead, and June's Corona Borealis has still not set by 10 p.m. Orion has not yet vanquished Hercules.
When you see streaks of scarlet in the oaks and shades of pink on the dogwood trees, cut your gourds, winter squash and pumpkins and grapes. Northern gardeners can expect light frost after the first weather system that usually occurs on the second. (Countryside)
Americans eat 350 slices of pizza per second. (I find that hard to believe.) Remember that when you're celebrating National Cheese Pizza Day on Sept. 5. Most of us want pepperoni, sausage or mushrooms on top of that cheese, according to a 2016 Harris Poll. Plain cheese is No. 4 in popularity. (Parade magazine)
I am almost eclipsed out, but so happy the weather cooperated and I got to see it from start to finish. It did get cooler. A nice breeze came up and then went away.
It did get dark, something that I really didn't believe. The streetlights came on, and the security light under the eaves lit up a short time later. The cicadas stopped singing, and no birds flitted across the yard.
We saw the 360-degree sunset, another thing I wasn't sure about. Very strange, almost eerie. Now I understand why people attribute so many things to total eclipses. It was magnificent.
To make the day perfect, all of the boys were home. It has been a long while since my sons have all been together. They had such a good time. Stories kept us entertained. Kidlet learned some things about her dad as a teen and young man. It's always nice to know that a parent was a kid just like you.
I read the headline correctly, but didn't assimilate it correctly. "Turkey bones may help trace fate of ancient cliff dwellers." My take: How can bones in Turkey have anything to do with southwestern cliff dwellers? The article actually was about poultry. It's an interesting theory, but not as interesting to think that the Anassi had Turkish ancestors.
Who doesn't remember opening his or her first box of Crayolas? Thank Pennsylvania's Binney & Smith Co., which introduced the American version of the wax marking crayon to the world in 1903. The Crayon Initiative, a nonprofit, collects unwanted colors and then recycles them to make new ones. The organization then donates the crayons back to hospitals, schools and children's programs. (Parade Magazine)
"I can feel a hole opening up. It's getting bigger and needs to be filled with my tweets." "Oh, why?" "The tweetersphere is an insatiable beast that must be constantly fed or it'll collapse. And you know what that would lead to?!" "Proper spelling, grammar and complete sentences?" "YES! Who's got time for that?!" (Non Sequitur Wiley Inc.)
"Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is the theme for Homemakers Fall Fest on Sept. 28 at Dorrisville Baptist Church. Non-homemakers are invited to join us. Cost is $10, which includes morning snacks, drinks and a hot lunch. Reservations are due Sept. 21. Send checks, made out to Multi-County Homemakers, to Wanda Raley, 1126 S. Granger, Harrisburg, IL 62946. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m., followed by the program at 9 a.m. Topics for the day: Dinger Bats from Ridgway, Miners Baseball, skin care, farm-to-table, baseball recitations and music by Don Faulkner. The day ends around 2 p.m.
"My favorite season isn't a season at all. It's the space between seasons, when you get the best of both summer and autumn. When the days are warm and the nights are cool. When the wildflowers are extra wild in their last bloom, and when the drying leaves sound like ocean waves.
"As summer winds down, I spend less time worrying about tornadoes and more time using the wild plants I have dried. I spend less time weeding and more time drinking tea, baking bread, eating said bread, and reading about plants and butterflies." (Alisha Galbraith, a Countryside reader)