A Texas city girl in a small New England town …
👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸
We have arrived at the last part of this year’s “My Jack-o-Lanterns” season. I can’t believe October went by so fast. Here are the pictures of the pumpkins from 2014, 2015, and 2016.
👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸👻🎃🕸
… to be continued in October 2026.
Meriden celebrates the 125th Anniversary of the dedication of Castle Craig, which sits atop East Peak, overlooking Hubbard Park. The 32-foot-tall stone observation tower was built in 1900 and was inspired by local philanthropist Walter Hubbard’s travels in Europe. Castle Craig is located on one of the highest hilltops within 25 miles of the East Coast, sitting at 1,000 feet above sea level.
Lifestyle writer Colleen Paige has taken credit for establishing National Cat Day in 2005. Her stated mission: “To help galvanize the public to recognize the number of cats that need to be rescued each year and also to encourage cat lovers to celebrate the cat(s) in their lives for the unconditional love and companionship they bestow upon us. ”We categorically believe her. She appears to love all cats — domestic and feral — and we’re certainly in favor of that.
Science magazine reports that cat domestication goes back 12,000 years. That encompasses a lot of toys and even more naps. The process appears to have taken place in the Middle East — think Israel, Iraq, and Lebanon. Domestication did not happen overnight. Cats did not go from wild beasts to softly purring pets — just, sort of, one day. Per National Geographic: “DNA analysis suggests that cats lived for thousands of years alongside humans before they were domesticated. During that time, their genes have changed little from those of wildcats, apart from picking up one recent tweak: the distinctive stripes and dots of the tabby cat.”
Another study from the University of Rome scholar Claudio Ottoni reveals that ancient sailors would bring cats along to “help protect food storage on board by killing rodents. This allowed cats to spread across the world.”We’re glad they spread. Like dogs, who get all the credit for being lovable, cats feel everything we do. They can gauge our moods and emotions — and act accordingly. They have also given up a lot of their natural cravings to live in homes and apartments. (Especially indoor cats.)
Fox squirrels are large tree squirrels. Due to their ability to adapt to a wide range of forest habitats, they are Texas’ most common squirrel. Their greatest numbers occur in open upland forests with a mixture of oak and nut trees. Fox squirrels are an important game animal, but their fondness for corn and pecans often causes them to be considered pests by farmers.
Squirrels are usually active early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Fox squirrels nest in holes in trees or build leaf and twig nests. They eat acorns and other nuts, buds, fruit, fungi, insects, amphibians, and the inner bark of trees. Squirrels bury nuts for winter food and relocate the nuts by smell. Squirrels find only a portion of the nuts they bury, and are important in planting many species of nut trees. A single squirrel can bury several thousand pecans over 3 months.
Squirrels’ long bushy tails are used for a variety of purposes. They can be wrapped around a squirrel’s face to keep them warm, used as an aid in balancing when they run along tree limbs, or spread and used as a parachute if the squirrel should fall. With a little practice, watching a squirrel’s tail movements gives you a clue to their mood. Quick jerks of the tail signal that they are nervous or upset.
Fox squirrels usually have two litters a year. Breeding season peaks in January and February and again in May and June. The young, usually 3 – 4 to a litter, are born naked, blind, and helpless. Just three months later, however, they can survive on their own. Squirrels can live up to 15 years.
: https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/easternfoxsquirrel/
Under The Harvest Moon 