Monday Musings

  Today is the fall equinox, with 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Autumn is a time of harvest, a time to appreciate the bounty of nature. Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, we’re beginning to notice the trees’ color changes and the subtle drift of dropping leaves. Peak fall color in this region varies by date and altitude. This Almanac.com link features an  animated map depicting fall color change progression . The top places to view seasonal leaf change in the North Carolina mountains are detailed in an article in  Blue Ridge Mountain Life . Our mountains provide a vast array of opportunities. Last year, most of the leaf viewing in the North Carolina mountains was circumvented by the Hurricane Helene disaster. The monster storm devastated the Western Appalachian region on September 27, 2024. Some  sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway remain closed  due to repairs following landslides, bridge outages, and Helene Recovery. Please che...

  It’s the time of year when our physical mailbox is stuffed with paper catalogs, and our inbox is populated with internet ads. With Thanksgiving barely behind us, we were slammed with  Black Friday  notices piling into our email, dozens hour after hour. Next up was  Small Business Saturday , a kinder, gentler approach to gift selection. This Hallmark holiday is the time to visit a local small-town merchant and honor them with your purchases. Once again, today, there has been an outpouring of ads, this time for  Cyber Monday . My iPhone notifications are off the charts. Tomorrow dawns with a philanthropic choice,  Giving Tuesday . It’s an excellent opportunity to donate dollars to your favorite charity. We are not impacted by these requests because we do our holiday shopping year-round. When we see an item we think would be a perfect present for a friend or family member, we pick it up and store it away until the time is right for gifting. Are you a last-mi...

Today, October 28, 2024, we celebrate first responders. The above flag includes the colors attached to the various service providers. Some banners also include an orange stripe for Search & Rescue. The intent of this day is to honor the brave and selfless professionals who put their lives on the line to serve, protect, and rescue citizens in desperate emergencies. They run directly toward danger. Recognition of the extent of morbidity and mortality from accidents began in 1966 with the federal study  Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society . This report showed accidental injuries were the “leading cause of death in the first half of life’s span.” Finally, in 2017, Congress passed the resolution to establish National First Responders Day. Emergency Dispatchers  are the critical link between callers in distress and emergency response teams. They staff 911 phone lines and gather key information to connect the appropriate police, fire, and/or E...