A few comments

Fall is a terrific season for the garden. Those dead leaves make great mulch to protect plants from lower temperatures in the winter. But another neat thing is that many of the annuals begin to go to seed. So now is a good time to begin harvesting. I have been getting seeds from the purple cone flower


and the Indian blanket flower. Both are shown here.



Of course there is the delightful changing of the leaves. They turn glorious colors as the sap leaves them to dry and to fall. The Japanese maple shown here is pretty red most of the year. But it gives an idea. The hard woods, such as maples are the most colorful. But birches, aspens, and Bradford pear also put on a fine show.



This afternoon, my wife and I were having lunch in a Mexican restaurant. There were a couple of people who sat and talked on their cell phones while feeding their faces. That's slightly rude. Ruder still was the fact that they were having lunch with other people. I fear that if one of my friends were to do that, they would get some pretty stiff words on the subject. Fortunately, most of my friends are, like me, from the stone age when almost all telephones were attached to the wall and only portable as far as the cord between the handset and the telephone body. There some radio phones. These were considered a rare novelty and were quite expensive. They were also big enough to make them inconvenient or impossible to carry anywhere but the car.

The saddest part of that cell phone attachment was a young woman who was having lunch with her children. The kids were very well behaved. And in between the calls she made, wanted to talk to her. She appeared to enjoy the conversations. But she still went back to the phone and made more calls. The kids were bored to the point of putting their heads on their arms and napping while she chattered away.

Truly, I feel a little sadder for that woman. Time spent with your children when they want to be with you gets increasingly rare as they grow up. Often, by the time they reach teenage, they don't want to even admit that you are their parents. That woman wasted half an hour that she can never get back. When the kids leave home, or just begin to be independent, she may recall that time and wish she'd talked with them instead of chatting with her friends.

My opinion is that cellular telephones are only appropriate in certain places and at certain times. Too many accidents have been caused by people talking on their phones, texting or just dialing numbers. When they are using their phones, they usually don't have a hand free to operate their turn signals. They certainly are not paying much attention to their surroundings. I sat behind a woman who didn't move through two cycles of a stop light. When I got out of my car and approached, I saw she was yakking on her phone. I guess my approach got her attention. She burned rubber getting onto the road, then stayed in the turning lane, still talking. [I heaved a big sigh here] Hey, you all, hang up and drive!!!