Appalachia Waltz on Thanksgiving

I was listening to WFMT radio station yesterday, Thanksgiving Thursday, when a beautiful piece of music caught my attention -- Appalachia Waltz by Mark O'Connor featuring Yo Yo Ma on violin.

Chairman of Co-operative Bank allegedly on crystal meth and crack cocaine

Mirror.co.uk

Just when you thought banks couldn't sink any lower: how on earth did the Reverend Paul Flowers become Chairman of the Co-operative Bank in 2009??? If these allegations are true, no wonder the bank came close to collapse with this guy at the helm!
More @ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paul-flowers-crystal-meth-crack-2803420

Lancashire Bonfire Night

Ten things about Bonfire Night that you probably didn't know at this link:  
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/guy-fawkes-2013-from-timid-testicles-to-gunpowder-plot-truthers-ten-things-about-bonfire-night-you-probably-didnt-know-8922156.html

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot... 

Here are three photos from last night's Bonfire Night celebration at the farm:

Below is a picture of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, John Wright, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby and Thomas Wintour.

Fall Day in Chicago

My dog, Poppy, standing in the burnished maple leaves of a Chicago Fall day (taken earlier today):

Photo: Jane Masterson

Ode to Autumn (by John Keats)

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;	10
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;	15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;	20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day	25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;	30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.