Halloween Candy Favorites

Last years Halloween Candy. Reese's-overall favorite, KitKat-Montana's favorite,
and Tootsie Rolls--New Hampshire's favorite

Halloween is in two days and recently on the news they have been reporting about favorite Halloween candies. (Wanna guess the top choice in the country? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.) However, what I found more interesting than the overall results was the favorite Halloween candy for each of the fifty states. Influenster polled 40,000 people and compiled individual state statistics.
 
The results showed a wide variety of preferences but basically chocolate and sour candies predominated. The exception to this was candy corn which as the most picked candy with five states choosing it. And what I found very interesting was some candies that one group may consider the "yucky" candies such as candy corn, Sweet Tarts, and Laffy Taffy were top picks for others.

A couple of states stood out to me. Arizona's choice was Toblerone bars. Wow, Swedish chocolate for Halloween? That seemed kind of fancy to me to give out in numbers, but maybe there's some kind of history to that that I don't know. West Virginia's choice was Oreos. They were the only state that chose cookies. Not sure where this comes from either. I never got any Oreos in my bag when I was growing up there and I don't think my mother has ever handed any out. But times do change.

According to the survey, if I want to give out the favorite candy in Maryland, I need to get some Almond Joys. But first I have to figure out the age old question? Do I want to give out a candy I like so I can enjoy the leftovers? (That would certainly be Almond Joys or most other kinds of chocolate). Or do I give out something I don't like so I won't eat the leftovers (That would be Whoppers--Kentucky's favorite .) I think the answer to this question will probably be determined by how hungry I am when I go shopping Halloween morning.

What kind of candy do you like? What's your candy buying strategy?

A Second Look--October 28, 2015

The remnants of Hurricane Patricia are coming today bringing with them a lot of rain. It's amazing to me that a system that started in the Pacific could make it all the way across the country over the varying topography and still have this much rain left in it. Weather and climate are such complex things, I'm not sure we'll ever totally understand them. Or at least that's how I felt after I took a class about them in college.

The leaves are at their peak now and color abounds. Such a beautiful sight everywhere you turn. Since dark is encroaching the day much earlier, I haven't had as much time when I'm at home to do Second Looks. In fact, I didn't go to the back 40 of the yard at all this week. However, I will share with you a few pictures on trees in the front part of the yard as they are showing their colors. There is about a week's range in the pictures and you can see how much the colors changed during that time.

Also, when we visited a local park on Sunday, I talked to the naturalist there about the curious-looking spider I showed you recently during another Second Look. With her help, we determined that is was a lattice orbweaver spider. Although the internet is very helpful with these questions, talking to a real person is even better.

Here are a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Female downy woodpecker.

Lattice orbweaver spider (Araneus thaddeus) The white thing on it's back is actually its abdomen. Once again, I've never seen anything like that.

A Walk in the Park

"This is my favorite time of year--I think I love it because it is so beautiful and it's so short-lived--I have to really take the time to enjoy it because tomorrow the leaves may all be off the trees!"

The other day Kris made this comment that got me thinking. The leaves are close to peak right now and any day, a rain could come and wash all of the colors away. So Ward and I decided it was time to take a hike at a local park. Thanks for giving us the nudge we needed, Kris. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Here are some pictures from our walk today.

Monarch Way Station. This area is maintained specifically for monarchs. The white "flowers" are seed heads from their host plant, milkweed.

This pond was created to teach about pond habitats.

This bench was made by local school kids from trash and earth. The details were really interesting.

We watched activity along the lake seeing fishing, kayaking, and good old-fashioned throwing rocks in the water.

After hiking around the lake for a while, we headed up the hill to find another trail.

Ward wanted to explore this trail because it winds up close to where he works.

One of the interesting sights along the way.

We crossed a stream.

We saw the foundation of a mill built in 1810. The mill was used both as a saw mill and a grist mill. 

Ward walking along the boardwalk through the swampy area.

Back in the parking lot, we saw this tree being photographed many times including several family portraits.

Thankful Sunday--October 24, 2015

I am thankful for fuzzy socks.

Year round I sleep with socks on. Sometimes in the summer, I wake up and take them off in the middle of the night, but I need my socks and warm feet to fall asleep. Every year, I get myself another pair during Christmas clearance for $1. They are fuzzy and roomy with good elastic--just about perfect as far as I'm concerned. For these socks and their help to me in getting a good night's sleep, I am thankful.

What was I thinking?

I have a yellow folder that I put things into that might be a good idea for a future blog post. My mind is kind of busy these days with uninteresting things to the rest of the world, so I thought it was time to get some ideas from there. The problem is that I don't know what many of the things mean any more.

Here are a few of them in no particular order except how I pulled them out.

Written on a piece torn from a brown, paper bag. "Yellow (big)-rabbit bush, Yellow many-flowered--viguicva, Yellow--satisfy, Yellow--dessert blazing star."  I think these are flowers from our Southwest vacation that I was going to do a special Second Look post with. I don't think there's any chance that I could go back to my pictures and figure out all of these different yellow flowers. However, who knows? It might be a lot of fun to do that on a frigid January day.

Root beer floats--now I like root beer floats, but I have no idea what I was going to write about them

Should have returned Sharon idea--no clue

Daughters of the Mountain--a book about women coal miners. This could be interesting, but will take a lot of research

Capitol Steps program--Capitol Steps is a group that does political satire with songs and skits. We went to see them last January. Not sure what I was going to write, but anything I heard then would be outdated now because they do very topical material.

Godspell program--I actually do remember this one. We went to a performance and I got to go on stage from the audience. I was going to talk about the stage ham that I used to be (or still am.)

Johnny Appleseed--I think I was going to do more research and follow up on an earlier post.

Different light--microwave, pressure cooker. Anyone out there know what that means?

And as happened with many of those ideas, I've run out of time. Gotta wrap this up or I'll be late to work.

Until next time...

A Second Look--October 21, 2015

This week we had our first frost of the season. And the second. It finally feels really cold with temperatures in the 20's one morning and I don't like it. But I guess I will adjust. It's always hard with the first cold snaps.

There were a few a casualties with the second frost, but there is still life in most of the plants. The leaves continue to change and fall, but the color is not at its peak yet. In fact, it's hard to imagine that there are so many green leaves left on the trees when there are some many brown ones on the ground.

As much as I don't like the coming of winter, I do love this time of year with the russet colors, crunching leaves, and the earthy smells. Autumn. Yes.

Here are a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

The sun came out and the bees were busy on the recent mum blooms.

The nettle survived the frost and has an occasional bloom here and there.

However, most of the marigolds were not so lucky. This is one of the few blooms that made it through the frosts okay.

There haven't been any coneflowers blooming for several weeks now and the birds have been enjoying their seed heads.  However, I found one more bloom this week.

And speaking of birds, the gold finches have lost their brilliant yellows of summer when it was breeding season.

Fleabane in the grass.

Sweet gum leaves

Grazing deer

Thankful Sunday--October 18, 2015

I am thankful for a hug.

When we first moved here, there was a shy, little boy, Manny, living next door. Gradually, he and Theo became best friends. Manny was here all of the time playing with the boys, spending the night, and going to soccer practice and Boy Scout meetings with us. We helped him with his homework and gave him friendly advice. I think he liked it over here because it was more stable than what was going on at his house.

Theo and Manny in their younger days
 playing with balloons.

However, long about the beginning of his teen years, he expanded his horizons and started hanging out with the wrong crowd. Skipping school, petty theft, and pot started to be part of his every day life. After one particular event, I told him he was not allowed in our house any more until he showed signs that he was trying to do better. My only requirement was that he cut back on the number of tardies and absences from school. In the meantime, I talked to his family about all kinds of services that could help him, books to read, and people to talk to. However, in their own way, they did what they thought was best and did nothing.

Manny never did make it back into our house. I talked to him several times, but thought it was important to remain firm both for safety reasons and for him to have some consistency in expectations--something that had been mostly lacking from his family. His behavior escalated to major thefts, jail time, drug dealing, and heroin addiction. A very sad thing for everyone--especially Theo.

Throughout the next ten years, he was in and out next door and I never had more than a wave to him. However, the other day he was sitting in his backyard with a friend and I went over and introduced myself to his friend and said hi to Manny. Manny said that it had been a long time and there was an awkward silence. And then he got up and gave me a big hug.

And from that big hug, I felt like the Manny, from years ago, was still in there somewhere and maybe he can find his way again. And for that I am thankful.

Buying for Boys and Girls

A couple of months ago, I listened to an interesting discussion on the Kojo Nnamdi radio show about gender marketing for kids. The show followed Target's announcement that they were going to take down signage for their toys and bedding with the words "Boy" or "Girl" in them so they would be more gender neutral. They were also going to remove the pink backgrounds from some areas. I found the discussion about how these conventions developed very interesting.

Pink for girls and blue for boys has not always been the norm. It first was suggested in the late 1800's but didn't become common until the late 1950's. A study in the 1920's in department stores showed that gifts for baby girls and baby boys were about 50/50 pink and blue for each one. Meaning, baby boys and girls were getting equal amounts of pink and blue gifts. And later when there was more differentiation, it was very culturally dependent. Blue is the color associated with the Virgin Mary, so in countries with a large Catholic population, blue was for girls. And red was associated with stronger things like blood, and since pink was a variation of that, it was associated with boys.

Also, there was more neutrality in clothing than today. In the 1950's and 1960's, girls had to wear dresses to school and boys wore nicer clothes also. Then they came home and put on play clothes. A look at catalogs back then showed a small section of dresses for girls, a small section of nicer clothes for boys and a large section of play clothes that were for both girls and boys--no differentiation. These went through size 10-12. Today almost all clothing is geared toward either a boy or a girl.

A look at the way toys were marketed also showed some interesting trends. When ads were studied from the 1920's through the 1960's, it was found that the toys that were marketed to girls had to do with household duties and boy's toys were geared more to building sets and cars. However, only about 50% of the toys had any kind of gender identification. Fast forward to today and a look at a Disney Store's website shows 100% of the toys are targeted to either a girl or a boy. But today instead of trying to sell girls little brooms or irons, they are selling princesses.

In between these times at the height of feminism in the 1970's, only 2% of the toys were marketed for specifically girls or boys. This neutrality declined until the mid 1990's when about half of the toys were now gender specific--just like it was in the 1950's. One other thing mentioned was that however toys were marketed when someone was growing up is what they think is the norm. Everything is compared to that.

So what does this all mean? I"m not sure but I do find it interesting that in the 1950's when there weren't as many opportunities for women, half of the toys were still gender neutral. And now in 2015, when there are many more opportunities for women, almost all of the toys are marketed specifically to either a boy or a girl.

This is a very complex subject with many layers--too many to explore in this one blog post. So I'll leave you now to ponder marketing of kids products over the years. What were things like when you were growing up and did you change how you bought things for your kids or grandkids?

A Second Look--October 13, 2015

Here are some things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

One of the pansies that Kimmy and I planted over the weekend.

The first chrysanthemum bloom of the season. 

These mushrooms just sprung up in the last couple of days and covered quite a wide area--maybe 4'x3'. (I'm not sure that makes sense. Actually, not just these mushrooms covered that big of an area. These and others covered a wide area. Those would have been some big mushrooms!)

For years I have tried to get a picture of these delicate white flowers (can't remember thei name) and have finally done it. The problem has been that they grow on a mass of thin, delicate stems and leaves and the camera never knows where to focus. 

Wild cherries. These are an example of the many berries birds have to eat this time of year.

Tulip Poplar. The leaves are changing on this tree but not on some others.

Cows in the field behind us. This is an example of what the trees look like at this point in time. Change is happening but green is still the predominant color.

This is a funnel spider we found in our bird feeder. I hope to have more information about it soon. I've submitted an identification request to All About Bugs.  It's pretty curious looking, if you ask me.

Planting flowers

Kimmy examining some of the dug up worms.

Living next door to me is a special needs girl, Kimmy*. The situation she lives in is very complicated and not a very good one from my perspective. However, in their own way, her family does what they think is best for her. This means they withdrew her from school and let her spend her days playing video games. However, Kimmy also visits me almost every day and during her visits, we chat a bit and read a book or two together. Sometimes we play hide and seek.

I have been yearning to do many more hands-on activities with her, but for reasons too complicated to explain here, I can't. However, I did get a chance today when we planted flowers together. Kimmy came over just as I was getting ready to plant some pansies and I asked her if she wanted to help me plant or to read. She chose planting and I was surprised because of all of the things she tells me that she doesn't like to do.  But she was a willing helper. I didn't realize that planting a flower was such a complicated process until I started to teach Kimmy.

This is what we did.
1. Place the plant where we wanted it to go.
2. Clear away the mulch
3. Dig a hole for the plant without mixing the dirt with the mulch.
4. Measure the hole to see if it is the right size
5. Take the plant out of the pot without damaging it. (Squeeze the sides and push the bottom.)
6. Separate any roots that are starting to get root bound.
7. Place plant in hole and fill dirt around making sure there are no pockets of air.
8. Replace mulch or protect plant as we called it.
9. Water around the plant and not on top of it. (The ground was wet, so we didn't water the hole.)

Kimmy was a quick study and corrected me on any steps I forgot--like the time I was talking about what was on the pizza I had for breakfast and forgot step 8.

But the most fun Kimmy had was with the earthworms. I explained about how they were good for the soil (a new word for her) and we examined them. From then on, she was very excited every time she found one. She said that she couldn't wait to tell her family that she found three worms and she wasn't afraid of them. We also collected acorns and pebbles we dug up that she took home with her.

We both had a great time digging in the dirt and it was a wonderful way to spend a lovely fall afternoon.

*Kimmy is 16 and reads on a first grade level. However, she has many other special skills.

Thankful Sunday--October 11, 2015

I am thankful for the entertainment that animals provide both inside and outside our house.

This and That

If you read here very often, you may have noticed that my blog has been a bit anemic recently--meaning my posting has decreased to just Second Looks and Thankful Sundays. There are several reasons for this, but in a general way, it is because I have been feeling overwhelmed. Some of that comes from chronic stressors I have and some of it comes from a busier than usual schedule the last few months. But it has all left me too tired to do much thinking when I have time to sit down at the computer.

Here is where I think my perfectionism is getting in the way. In my mind, there is a certain quality I want my posts to have that I haven't had the energy to figure out recently.  I have started a couple that need more research before they're ready to go and I'm ending up with nothing in the meantime. So I'm going to try to just post. I'm not sure what about, but you'll hear from me. I miss hearing from you on a more regular basis in the comments. But you don't have any place to comment if you don't have anything to read.

Here it goes. My brain dump about nothing in particular except what I see around me. :)

This morning as Ward was going out the door, he noticed a water stain on the ceiling. Never something that you want to see. The stain is below the corner of the garage roof and I hope that it is the result of hard rains and winds and not a fatal flaw in the roof. New roofs are too expensive to contemplate right now. Or ever, but are a very necessary part of home maintenance. It is supposed to rain this afternoon and evening, but clear up over the weekend. Hopefully, we can assess the situation then.

The freshly painted shed.

However, this week we did get our shed fixed up by Beto and Beto--friends of Carlos and Carlos who took down a couple of trees for us recently. (Yes, there are two teams of men working together with the same first name.) There were several places of rotten wood and squirrel gnawings on the shed that needed attention as well as painting. Ward had fully intended to do this project this month, but he really didn't have time. He has work for his regular job most every weekend as well as helping his dad prepare for his annual pig roast next weekend. Last weekend we were there helping with the planning and this weekend we plan to go to help with some preparty cleanup.

Lucy on one of her good days
sleeping in a basket of dirty clothes.

But for now, it time for me to do some errands--mostly picking up medicine for Lucy, my cat, and meeting some friends for some walking and talking--one of the ways I'm trying to take care of myself so maybe I won't be so tired.

Until next time....

A Second Look--October 7, 2015

I'm a little late with this week's Second Look because I've been busy. Today was the first chance that I had to make it outside when it wasn't raining or dark. In the meantime, while there is not much color from the trees except the dogwoods, leaves are starting to litter the ground. The squirrels are still busy, hiding nuts and some of the ones I saw "hidden" last week have been moved. Also, I saw my first wooly bear of the season, so I know that fall is really here.

Here are somethings I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

These marigolds have been the workhorse of the flowers this year. They are still going strong (even though I haven't done much deadheading recently.)

This lone violet decided to bloom in the fall instead of the spring.

This wooly bear was maybe the biggest one I've seen. It was at least two inches long. As an added bonus, do you see the worm below it?

The recent rain has surfaced a lot of ant hills.

Another Black-eyed Susan bloomed this week. Right now they are on the one-at-a-time schedule.

See the little bee in the base of the balloon flower?

And speaking of little bees, this blanket flower had one all curled up in one of its petals. I wasn't sure if it was alive or not, so I gave it a little poke. It crawled out and went into the cup of another petal. I left it alone after that so it could get a good night's rest.

I'm not sure if this granddaddy long legs was going to have the other bug for a meal or not.

The dogwoods are the reddest trees in the yard right now. If you look carefully, you can see mostly green leaves from holly, oak, and maple trees behind it.

Can you find the squirrel's nest in the walnut tree?