Grammar?

I discovered a site called "Grammatically Speaking".  It's actually a Staples site. It does say it's also Facebook, but I used my regular computer and not Facebook to access it.

http://m.staples.ca/sbdca/en_CA/cre/programs/grammarquiz/index.html#.UnJzwY9T-WP.facebook

It asks you questions, you choose the correct answer, and it tells you if you have selected the appropriate one.  I know it sounds a little like tests from school, but... have you wondered if you're using the right word at times?

Check it out!

Fall? Or Autumn?

Why Fall?  Why Autumn?  This is one of the things I have always found a great Mystery.  I found the answer on Dictionary.Com.  

They have a blog called "The Hot Word" which tells you all kinds of interesting things about words...

This is what they wrote about Fall and Autumn:

"The season we call fall was once referred to simply as “harvest” to reflect the time when farmers gathered their crops for winter storage, roughly between August and November. Astronomically, the season lasts from the end of the September until December, between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. (Want to learn more about the difference between a solstice and an equinox? Find out here.) The word harvest comes from the Old Norse word haust meaning “to gather or pluck.” In the early 1600s as more people started moving into cities, the word harvest fell out of use. Instead, city dwellers began to use the phrase “fall of the leaf” to refer to the third season of the year when trees lose their leaves. The word “fall” comes from the Old English word feallan which means “to fall or to die.” Over time, the phrase was shortened to fall. “Fall of the leaf” is a little clunky to use in common parlance.

Surprisingly, we don’t really know where the word “autumn” comes from. It was used as far back at the 1300s (by Chaucer), and Shakespeare often used the word, as in Midsummer Night’s Dream when one character describes the cycle of the year, “The spring, the summer, the childing autumn, angry winter.” However, etymologists have not determined its precise origin.

As English spread to the New World, the common season names split as well. The use of the word “fall” fell out of favor in England. Today, American English uses the word “fall” while British English uses “autumn” almost exclusively. Fall provides a nice foil to its opposite season, spring, and gives us the helpful reminder, “Spring ahead, fall back,” when we get confused about our clocks on daylight savings."

Scammers everywhere...

We received a warning via email today about a scam that's been going.  Criminals are calling and pretending to be the electric company, and demanding payment for overdue bills.  This will probably expand to other utilities, so best to beware. 

The reason they can get away with this is that the electrical companies do farm out their overdue accounts.  Doesn't mean that you have to give your money away foolishly though.  Your payment information is ALWAYS part of your monthly bill.  Don't pay anyone off the phone, or who calls to threaten you with having services turned off.  Call the number on your bill, and let them know if you've received calls.  Work through them!

Here is the link that I was given about this new scam:  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/scam-targets-utility-customers-100000666.html

November Elections are coming!

Be ready for November 5th, 2013! Here are some links to help you get going: Pennsylvania’s Voters’ Registration website! http://www.votespa.com/portal/server.pt/community/register_to_vote/ Register to vote here!  This site also includes a link to your polling station!    When is Election Day?  How to find it? http://www.almanac.com/content/when-election-day League of Women Voters http://lwvnorthco.org/ You don’t have to be a woman to use their information!

Find out who is running, and what the candidates have to say to the voters!  Learn about initiatives and important ballot questions!

Hopewell Furnace Historic Apple Orchard

Looking for somewhere interesting to go that is Very Fallish?

Check out Hopewell Furnace National History Site!   http://www.nps.gov/hofu/planyourvisit/hours.htm

We have been fortunate to visit the site for many years, taking our children along to pick more types of apples than you see just about anywhere else.  We're used to seeing Red and Yellow Delicious, and Hopewell Furnace does have those.  But they also have Macintosh and Winesap as well as a wide variety of apples that used to be popular in the old times, and that you don't see as much elsewhere nowadays.

Smokehouse apples are good for pies, and have a deep smoky afterflavor when you bite into them.  Cortland apples are the size of two of your fists put together and are also for making pies with - not too sweet, and they hold their shape when you cook them.  Northern Spy and Pippin (George Washington's favorite apple) are there as well.

Because it's a National History Site, the apples are not perfect like the ones you'd see in the supermarket.  They receive a limited amount of spraying for bugs, and sometimes come out a little lopsided.  The main office hands out the long picking poles, and you and your family can follow the map and try out the different types to see what you would like best.  Not all apples taste alike!

Two things to keep in mind... there will be yellow jackets.  They like the apples too, but you can avoid them.  They'll let you alone if you don't poke at them.  And there are white tail deer that come for the falls (fallen apples) long about dark.  So you do need to watch your step.

Apples that you pick are weighed at the office, and you pay for them per pound.  It's a lot less than you would pay at the grocery store, and you have the joy having picked them yourself!  Take a trip down, and enjoy the Fall!

Wooly Bears

It's Fall.  The season where the weather gets comfortable and invites us all to go out and get busy out of doors before the heavy Winter Season begins.  Yesterday I saw a Wooly Bear caterpillar, while out walking with my spouse.  Wooly Bears normally look like this: 

 I am fond of this type of caterpillar, since I kept one for a pet when I was younger.  I had it in a jar with holes in the lid for air, a twig, and leaves.  It wove itself a chrysalis and changed over the course of the winter, and in the Spring it hatched out as this rather plain looking moth: 

What was interesting about the Wooly Bear that I saw yesterday is that it was one long brown creature, no black in sight.  I've seen them almost all black, and all manner of variations in between, but I don't remember seeing one of them all brown before.  Tradition tells us that Wooly Bears foretell the weather for the Winter.  Having one that is all a single color either tells us that the Winter will be severe, or very easy.  Problem is that you will hear either of those possibilities for both all brown and all black.  So... not a very good prognosticator.

If you do get the chance to see one of these caterpillars, please be gentle.  They won't bite you, or hurt you.  Let them go on their way, and enjoy the fact that you've gotten a chance to see something that very Pennsylvanian!

Neighborhood Networks National Night Out...

Each year the Bethlehem Townhouse 1 Computer Training Center has a party.  All Neighborhood Networks sites have something to celebrate another year.

Our celebration this year was an Open House on Tuesday, August 27th.  The fifteen residents who stopped by shared in cake, door prizes, and computers.

Delivering notices to the 110 houses on site allowed me to speak to residents, let them know that the Computer Training Center is not just for Kids, and give them an idea of where we were.