St. Matthew. Autumnal equinox, 6:56 p.m. EST. St. Matthew brings on the cold dew.
SEPT. 23, TUESDAY - Rocky Marciano KO of Jersey Joe Walcott, 1952.SEPT. 24, WEDNESDAY - Moon rides high. F. Scott Fitzgerald born, 1896.
SEPT. 25, THURSDAY - Barbara Walters born, 1931. Glenn Gould born, 1932.
SEPT. 26, FRIDAY - George Gershwin born, 1898. T.S. Eliot born, 1888.
SEPT. 27, SATURDAY - Book matches patented, 1892. Talk does not cook rice.
SEPT. 28, SUNDAY - Al Capp born 1909. First World Series color broadcast, 1955.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: Is it true that Mary Pickford, America's motion picture sweetheart, was Canadian?
-D.T., Kalamazoo, Mich.
Answer: That's right. You'll find a plaque in her honor at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Mary was born Gladys Mary Smith in 1893 on University Avenue in Toronto. When her childhood home was demolished in 1943, she saved several bricks to remember it by. The address of her former home, 211 University Avenue, is now the site of the Hospital for Sick Children, which unveiled the plaque in her honor in 1973. Mary had suffered a bronchial condition she referred to as "the Eaton cough" after she'd been left in the open air outside Toronto's Eaton's store, in her baby buggy, while her mother was shopping.
Mary's mother, a widow, moved to New York with her children in 1901, so Mary had only eight years in her native Canada. She remembered it well, however, and chose to re-establish her Canadian citizenship a year before she died.
At age 17, Mary starred in D.W. Griffith's "Ramona" and at 19 in Griffith's "Her First Biscuit." In 1929, she was chosen for an Academy Award for best actress in "Coquette." She died in 1979 at age 89.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: Why are Bay of Fundy tides so dramatic, relative to other areas, say on the coast of Maine?
- G.R., Berkeley Springs, W.Va.
Answer: Some areas, such as the Bay of Fundy, which stretches between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, create a tunneling effect where a large volume of water from the deep ocean is forced into a narrow, shallow inlet. This can effectively magnify the tides, as evidenced by some of the highest tides in the world - over 50 feet at certain peak times - at the head of the Bay of Fundy. Anchorage, Alaska, on the opposite coast, also has some of the largest tides in the world, possibly resulting from a similar sort of funnel created by the Aleutian Islands, the strait between the Alaskan Peninsula and Kodiak Island and Cook Inlet.
If you've always thought that the rhythmic rise and fall of the tides happens as surely and equally as death and taxes, you've thought wrong.
Although the most common tide globally is the semidiurnal tide, such as that of Boston, with it's two high and two low tides approximately every 24 hours, some West Coast tides, such as mixed and vanishing tides, are quite different. In the Gulf of Mexico, the tides are diurnal, that is, there is just one high water and one low water in 24 hours.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: I've been seeing more dragonflies than usual this last summer. What's the scoop?
- S.G., Concord, Mass.
Answer: Some people are speculating that the effects of DDT are wearing off and that consequently, insects such as the dragonflies are coming back in greater numbers. That's good news for us, bad news for mosquitoes, because dragonflies feed on those little bloodsucking pests in huge quantities. Welcome these powerful fliers into your back yards and spend your lazy, end-of-summer days watching them light on the ends of your fishing rods. There are many specimens to observe, from the Brown Hawker and Keeled Skimmer to the Emperor (with its brilliant blue on the male's abdomen, green on the female's), Banded Demoiselle, or Golden-Ringed Dragonfly.
A dragonfly begins life in a pond, with an egg laid in the water. Once hatched, the larva grows by splitting its skin and forming a new, larger one. The water-dwelling nymphs, or babies, crawl about on the pond bottom and eat small creatures, which may include tadpoles and small fish. After up to 15 molts before the age of 2, the emerging adult dragonfly will finally climb up on a pond reed or stem into the open air, split its skin a final time, and emerge full-grown and ready to fly, usually having its first launch at night or in the wee hours of the morning to avoid predators. Damselflies are smaller and thinner, but related to the dragons.
You can tell the difference by how they hold their double sets of wings: the damsel rests with her wings over her back, while the dragon holds them flat at the sides of the body.
*****
Additional Information
This Week with The Old Farmer's Almanac
September 22-28, 1997
Autumnal Equinox, Sept. 22
National Good-Neighbor Day
September 28, must be when zucchinis are at their peak, because what better sign is thee of true neighborliness than that special person next door who's willing to take a few zucchinis off your hands? Someone once joked that the definition of loneliness is buying a zucchini from the grocery store at summer's end. Possibly, though, if you would "Love they neighbor as thyself," you might find it more neighborly not to leave your zucchinis on their doorstep. For the best advice on the matter, remember that "It is not as thy mother says, but as thy neighbor says."
Tip of the Week
Feed your compost with those baseball bat-size zucchinis, and feel no guilt.
Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
1 cup corn or safflower oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Beat eggs until light. Add next four ingredients, mix, and set aside. Mix dry ingredients, combine with the wet, and stir in the nuts. Bake in two well-greased loaf pans at 325 degrees F for 50 to 60 minutes. Cool pans on racks.
Makes 2 loaves.
The Old Farmer's Weather Proverbs
The number of fogs in autumn tells the number of snows in winter.
When the fog goes up, the rain is o'er. When the fog comes down, 'twill rain some more.
A southerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaim a hunting morning.