Ode to the Autumnal Equinox

The Autumnal Equinox in the northern hemisphere occurs when night and day are nearly the same length of 12 hours each.  This happens the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator (declination 0) moving from north to south.  The date could be anytime from the 22nd through the 24th of September, marking the first day of the season of autumn.  Equinox derives from the Latin meaning 'equal night'.

By all these lovely tokens September days are here

with summers best of weather

And Autumns best of cheer. 

                                                                     Helen Hunt Jackson, 1830-1885, American Writer

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge and Plum Island Sound Estuary 

 love you Dad

Birds get restless while humans hunker down...
Farewell Summer.  You were a Beauty!

Be You

It is never too late to become what you might have been.

George Eliot, aka Anne Evans, 1819-1880,  English Novelist

A is for Antiques

To say something is an antique delineates some kind of craftsmanship made precious as a result of age and rarity.  The US Customs Office defines an antique as an object that is at least 100 years old.  It was the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which constituted an antique as a 'work of art (except rugs and carpets made after the year 1700), collections in illustration of the progress of the arts, works in bronze, marble, terra cotta, parian, pottery or porcelain, artistic antiquities and objects of ornamental character or educatioal value which shall have been produced prior to the year 1830.'  That year heralded the beginning of mass production, and the definition makes the distinction between genuine antiques, vintage items and collectibles.  

Do you  L O V E  the uniqueness of antiques as much as I do?  They provide such a special link to those days gone by that cannot be replicated by modern artifacts no matter how hard we try.  Old is old!

Ageless

Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. - Jim Fiebig

On this Labor Day, may you celebrate in the spirit of the holiday that has been in existence since 1894.    As a tribute to American workers and as a symbol of the end of summer - enjoy your day of rest, and, 

your ice cream...in the cone.... Be safe everyone!