Many people think that spring is the only time of year to plant, but fall is one of the best times of the year to get shrubs and trees into the ground. During the fall trees are beginning to go into dormancy and since the soil temperatures are still warm compared to the air, this is an ideal environment for root development.

Trees improve the look of our world and provide many benefits - shade, privacy, increased property values, shelter and food for birds and other small creatures, and even a place for childhood tree houses. Plus, trees also improve the health of our planet. They clean the air by giving off oxygen, storing carbon, and recycling moisture into the atmosphere. Trees help prevent soil erosion, help modify temperatures, and act as windbreaks.

When choosing a tree, consider it’s shape and size at maturity. Select trees that grow well in your local climate and soil. Different tress have different tolerance levels for a variety of situations; late spring or early fall frosts, flooding or drying, high winds, light, and to different soils.

Deciduous trees can be planted in the fall, from leaf-fall until freeze-up. (Poplars, willows, ash, elms, and birches tend to fair better if planted in the spring.). Evergreens, coniferous trees, can be planted from about the first week of August into November, depending on your specific climate.

Remember when you are planting to dig a generous hole, roughly twice the size of the root ball. Then slide the plant out of the container and gently loosen the roots to encourage them to grow out. When you place the tree in the hole, set it slightly higher than ground level to allow for settling. Fill in around the plant with half compost and half of the existing soil. Water the tree in with a vitamin supplement to encourage root growth. (Additional watering of evergreens, prior to freeze-up will minimize the detrimental effects of winter drying.) Finish it off by adding a little mulch, but be careful not to get any on the crown.

After-planting care is of utmost importance, but need not be too strenuous. Check with your tree supplier for things you should do between planting and the first snowfall.

Of course, spring is when you’ll know if everything worked out fine. But no need to worry if you follow the basics, just sit back and enjoy the new landscape.

Everyone loves a Thanksgiving dinner, and for most people, it entails a slow-roasted turkey. But for many, the most dazzling part of such a holiday dinner is not the turkey itself, but rather what lies within the turkey – stuffing! Turkey dinner just wouldn’t be the same without it?

Most stuffing, or ‘dressing’ as some people call it, employs bread as a base, though some use potatoes or other fillers. Nuts are popular additions; cashews, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, etc. So are other flavourful ingredients like raisins, mushrooms and fruit. The endless possible combinations of ingredients makes for an amazing variety of recipes and new taste sensations.

So break for tradition and surprise dinner guests this year with a totally new stuffing. Try these recipes to make an impression on family and friends:

Classic Bread Stuffing with Celery, Onion and Herbs
Wild Rice Stuffing with Wild Mushrooms
Mom's Stuffing Recipe
Wild Rice Butternut Squash Stuffing
Apple and Onion Dressing
Vegan Stuffing
Awesome Sausage, Apple and Cranberry Stuffing
Thanksgiving Potato Filling
Herbed Thanksgiving Stuffing
Best Greek Stuffed Turkey
Emeril's Chorizo Stuffing
Crock Pot Stuffing
Cranberry Bread Stuffing
Pumpkin Mushroom Stuffing
Almond Apple Wheat Bread Stuffing

“Looking back, my life so far seems like one long obstacle race, with me as its chief obstacle.” ~ Jack Parr

“I've often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can't get my wife to go swimming.” ~ Jimmy Carter

“I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.” ~ Yogi Berra

“Question: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter? Answer: Pumpkin pi.” ~ Anon

A long time ago our ancestors noticed some things tended to reproduce themselves – that traits were inherited. Today, we have the field of science called genetics. You are made up of billions of cells. Inside the nucleus of each of your cells is your own unique set of 46 chromosomes. These chromosomes hold an incredibly long molecule of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). It stores all the information that determines what you look like and how your body functions. Check out these amazing facts about DNA, the single most important molecule in living cells:

• The chemical compound DNA was first discovered by Friederich Miescher in Germany about 100 years ago. Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the 'Double Helix' structure in 1953.
• DNA can be pictured as an incredibly long ladder that has been twisted into a double helix shape.
• You have about 9 million kilometers of DNA. That's enough to reach to the moon and back 13 times! 
• Sections of DNA which contain complete messages are known as genes. They can be thought of as 'words' along the DNA 'sentences', with about 100,000 of these 'words' in each sentence.
• A gene is a segment of the DNA molecule that codes for a single protein and most organisms have between 50,000 and 100,000 genes.
• In each of our cells we carry a complete genetic record which requires around 100 million ‘rungs’.
• Any two unrelated strangers anywhere on the planet share 99.9 percent of the same DNA. A miniscule fraction of the genome—about 3 million of its over 3 billion bases—accounts for the vast differences within the human race.
• Human beings have roughly 99.1 percent of our genes in common with the chimpanzee, our closest relative on earth.
• The overlap between mice and humans is surprisingly close, too. We have nearly 75 percent of our genes in common.
• Single gene errors account for more than 4,000 known hereditable diseases and the list is growing rapidly. A person’s risk for diseases from cystic fibrosis to Huntington’s now can be determined by looking at the DNA.
• The red blood cells are the only kind of cells in your body that don’t have DNA! That’s because they’re the only cells in your body that don’t have nuclei.

You’ll find a wide range of type sizes surfing from website to website, some of which are just too small to be able to read comfortably. And some fonts are less legible than others, too. Then there is the yellow type on a white background – often nearly impossible to read! Well here’s a simple tip that can alleviate your reading woes.

You can quickly and simply increase and decrease the size of a font on a web page by holding down the CTRL key on the keyboard and scrolling up or down with the wheel on a wheel mouse. Enlarging the font size can even help make difficult-to-read fonts styles and poor contrast between type and background more readable.

Cool Sites

Halloween Poems
Angela, age 10, says, “There must be over a hundred poems here – all written by kids! Some are about spooky stuff, and some are about other Halloween stuff. They’re really good!”

Black Baseball Greats
Willie, age 12, says, “My Dad and I are going to watch the baseball playoffs and World Series this year. My Dad suggested I check out some of the info on players from the Negro Leagues of baseball. He said they were just as good as or better than the major league players. This site has some really interesting facts.”

Halloween Tale
Maria, age 6, says, “I liked this story.  It is about Alfy and his friends going trick-or-treating on Halloween. It has scary pictures, scary sounds and ghosts. And it’s pretty easy, too.”

Bouquet of Thanks
Alison, age 8, says, “I made some of these leaf cards – orange and yellow ones – with Mom. I’m going to hand them out to all the people coming to our house for dinner on Thanksgiving.”

It’s just around the corner. Little scary faces, enchanted figures, sports heroes and movie icons will be showing up at your door looking for a treat. Halloween can seem like a big build up for just a couple of hours of merriment. This year, make a Halloween statement! Try these suggestions:

• Serve Halloween punch or orange Kool Aid from a large hollowed-out pumpkin. Use a large ladle to serve it and use orange cups for added impact.
• Fill clear food-handlers plastic gloves with water and freeze ‘ice hands’ to throw in the punch bowl or to sit on either side of a scary jack-o-lantern.
• If you have children or grandkids, hold a pumpkin carving contest for them - and their friends. Buy a few small pumpkins and give prizes for the most creative - a great ‘week before’ activity.
• Slip small glow sticks into orange balloons, blow them up, and hang them around the house, inside and out, for some spooky light Halloween lighting.
• Have a Halloween film festival every weekend in October. Watch a scary film, an old classic or a newer horror movie. Make some popcorn, invite friends over!
• Instead of buying candy to hand out to your local kids, make a batch of caramel apples, pop corn balls or other sweet treats! Home made is always better! Don’t forget to include a slip of paper with your name and address on it so parents know who made the treat.
• Do you throw away your jack-o-lanterns when they start to rot? Start a tradition of burying them instead! Hold a ‘service’ to honour the pumpkins that gave their lives for your Halloween!

Have kids who just can’t wait for Halloween? Give young ones an outlet for their Halloween energy. Pick-up some mini pumpkins and have the kids clean them out and carve something suitable for thanksgiving or simply interesting shapes, then add a votive candle and display proudly on Thanksgiving Day.

‘Keep a Stiff Upper Lip’

Meaning – to show confidence and optimism after a let down.
Example – ‘Keep a stiff upper lip. You’ll beat that team next time you play them.’
Origin - This expression dates back to the 1800s, but it is still used today. Keeping a stiff upper lip can be hard to do and that's why it became an expression. When someone gets upset, his or her lips might tremble. If you keep a stiff upper lip, you are trying not to show you are upset.

A pilot hole is a hole that you drill into your wood boards before driving a nail or screw into place. Pilot holes can help keep wood from splitting and can help you drive screws or nails in with better accuracy.

The most common use of pilot holes is when working with hard woods, such as maple or oak. The pressure from a nail or screw installed suddenly into hard wood can cause the wood to split apart at the grain lines. These splits can make your woodworking projects look sloppy and can cause structural instability. Pilot holes are also helpful if you need to put a nail or screw into a narrow piece of hard or soft wood. A narrow board doesn't have as much strength to resist splitting as a wider board does.

The pilot hole size depends on the size of the nail or screw you are installing. Choose a drill bit that is slightly smaller than the diameter of the nail or screw.

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." ~ Michelangelo