September 14, 2021 a thought for today, Great chiefs prove their worthiness. Native American Seneca

Today was a grocery shopping day. I wasn’t out of too much but what I was out of was important. Anyway, it, the shopping and all that comes with it, still takes that big chunk of energy. The ins and outs of the cart and car and the putting away. I can remember that same chore when I had three babies under five years old. It was a huge “happening” then but not nearly the stress on brawn and bones that is now all these nearly sixty years from that era.

On September 13 the photo a day challenge was “on my wall”. As is true of most photographers I have a lot of framed photos. But I don’t have them mounted on the walls. I don’t have the gumption to climb a ladder to hang them properly anymore so they line some of my walls, artfully placed I might add, along the floor lines. This one won out and got itself hung on a day I had a lot of energy. 

By the time all that energy has been used up and the body seems deflated there is nothing left to even attempt an action in some other direction. So its looks like all productivity for the rest of the day will be postponed. 

The word for today is fall/fallen.  Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life. Robert Louis Stevenson. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns, George Eliot. Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Limited in his nature, infinite in his desire, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven. Alphonse de Lamartine.  A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. Friedrich Schiller. Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile, William C. Bryant. He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. Aeschylus.  Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes. Jonathan Swift.  First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf, Martin Luther. The drops of rain make a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling. Lucretius. But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. Lord Byron. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, Henry David Thoreau.

The photo a day theme for today is “happy”. I have scads of shots in the archives of my kids, my grand
kids and the twins that I could have used but I wanted something more current. I didn’t shoot this one but it caught my eye and seemed perfect for todays “assignment”. I thought of the “assignment” as could have meant pick a photo that fits “happy”. My granddaughter in law sent this one to me so I asked for permission to borrow it. 

This article has an interesting and possibly helpful side. It is about something called the “armyworms” and has a possible solution. There is a family owned farm in Uhrichsville along Crooked Creek, that raises cattle. A couple of weeks ago they noticed a brown spot in one of the pastures. A couple of days later it had grown to twice it’s original size. This is about the time he had received information about armyworms. He had also read that a farmer who raised turkeys lived nearby. He got an idea about using them for the problem. So he contacted the farmer and bought 90 turkeys. He turned them loose in his pastures. The turkeys began pecking at the tiny holes that were in the ground. This seemed to attract a bunch of starlings who joined in the fun. According to the article within days the armyworms were gone agronomist came out to check on the farm and the worm problem. It so happened that when the starlings were waiting to come into the field they were sitting on high power lines and blew out the power. The pasture was then named “Pasture 911". Two ranchers had been working on an idea to use poultry to “rehabilitate pastures that had been under-grazed or over-grazed”. When they were developing this idea they heard about the armyworm problem and decided this was a perfect opportunity to put it all together. This project was a great success. There is hope that the pasture will be back to normal next spring. The turkeys will most likely become Thanksgiving dinners. I learned from the article that the worms are semi-tropical and normally live in the southern parts of the country but have been destroying lawns and crops in Ohio for the past several weeks. The farmer was able to use the turkeys to control the worms instead of chemicals. 

I am trying to think of something quick and easy to fix for dinner. We have some left overs that will work or some frozen chicken fries. 

Joy

Under the branches of a shade tree