My allergist was optimistic in the spring. “Just wait,” he said, back then, “as soon as the temperature goes above 100 degrees, your allergies will be gone.” He was right. When the real Texas heat hit, my allergies ran for cover. It was a relief to my nose, but it was and remained hot for my body for a long time. Now, the autumnal equinox has passed and the cool of fall is in the air. Sadly, the hay fever is again returning to my nose and sinuses.

Just what is hay fever, anyway?

It does start with hay, in the sense that the dust and pollens from the fall-blooming grasses, plants and weeds are what trigger hay fever. Hay fever is your immune system reacting to the pollen granules in your environment. You are having an allergic reaction.

Ok, but how does it work?

We start with some pollen grains from a plant, let’s say from the ragweed plant. Ragweed pollens are tiny enough to be blown by the wind right up your nose. Once in your nose, those little pollens settle down for a stay. You sneeze and blow some back out, but a few ease into the cracks and crannies of you nasal epithelium, the moist skin lining the inside of your nose. A few get even more comfortable, burrowing down and through your skin and right into your body.

That’s when the allergy reaction starts.

Inside your body, there are these odd-looking creatures called immunoglobulins or antibodies. An immunoglobulin (Ig) looks like the letter “Y.” These Y-shaped Ig’s are always looking to identify and subdue intruding bodies, which is why immunoglobulins are also called “antibodies.”

Antibody immunoglobulins move against foreign invaders, which are called allergens. Allergens are thought to be the bad guys. Our ragweed pollens are seen as allergens.

Immunoglobulins are friendlies. They are part of our body’s front line of defense. Immunoglobulins themselves have different names for their different defense corps: IgA, IgD, IgE, IgG and IgM.

Remember the 2002 movie “The Two Towers”? It was the second in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels by the same names. Well, in “The Two Towers,” there is this very interesting, oldish, gnarled, moss-bearded tree-creature called appropriately “Treebeard.” Treebeard lives in Fangorn Forest, and Treebeard is an Ent. To me, the “E” in IgE stands for the “E” in Ent. Our “E” immunoglobulins are the ones most involved in the allergy reaction to respond to intruding allergens.

Like Treebeard, immunoglobulin E’s are very tall with long arms and big hands. Ents and IgE’s both resemble big gnarly “Y’s.” They grab those pollens in their big hands at the end of their long arms. Remember how Treebeard grabbed the hobbits Merry and Pippin, whom he thought were allergen invaders. From the perspective of Fangorn Forest and the Ents, the hobbits were allergens, but we know from having seen the movies and read the books that hobbits are really quite nice and not a threat at all. Nonetheless, Treebeard did what good-intentioned IgE’s do best: they react, they grab those allergens, and they take off running seeking further assistance, just like Treebeard.

Where do they go?

That IgEnt is looking for a mast cell. A mast cell is a fully masted battle-flier with a store of trained marines. Far off, Treebeard sites a mast cell. With those big hands, he hales the masted flying machine, jumps aboard, delivers the captured intruder pollens, and makes a full report on the nature and extent of the invasion to Commander Gru.

Fully recovered from his villainy in the 2002 film “Despicable Me” and basking in his positive success (and romance) in “Despicable Me 2,” Gru immediately assesses the situation (perhaps a bit too quickly). Commander Gru turns to Kevin and Bob and orders them to activate the marine minions and respond to the allergen threat. In our bodies, the marine minions are called “histamines.”

Of course, the histamine minions do what minions do best. They overact. Knocking down walls (opening up our blood vessels), flooding the environment (fluids gushing into and out of our noses) and overpowering the amazed allergens beneath mounds of squirming mushy minions (sinus congestion and stuffy nasal passages), they over-respond and manage to do perhaps more damage than good. But, the allergens are certainly subdued. It’s just that the nose and its surroundings are a mess and need some help.

Not to fear, the reformed Dr. Nefario is here to save the day, as he did so well in “Despicable Me 2” (the movie is a delight to watch). With the good Doctor, our family doctors and nurses with their stores of anti-histamines slow down those minions and set things back in place. Thanks, Doc, for helping with the mess.

Most allergy reactions are over-reactions from mis-understandings, like Treebeard not appreciating the nature of hobbits (they really aren’t that bad), Gru moving too fast (ask Margo, Edith and Agnes for their opinions before jumping to the full attack), and minions gone amuck (as only minion can do and do so well.)

Why?

We all move around too much. In the old days, folks lived where they were born; and they had few allergies as adults. They had them plenty as kids. Ever see a kid who didn’t have a runny nose? That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Young bodies need over-reaction to develop the correct immunities, and young bodies are super healthy to handle the over-reactions. After a while, say after five years old, things have been sorted out. The youngsters know the good allergens from the bad ones, and their bodies react appropriately thereafter. Drop a 32-year old or a 52-year old into a new city in a new state in a new country, and those bodies do not have those young experiences. But, the way the body is designed to deal with and learn how to manage allergens is the over-reaction way of Treebeard, Gru and Kevin & Bob. So, allergic over-reactions in adults are to be expected in a global society with everyone on the move. I don’t like to say this, but say it I must: We need to get used to it and find a good allergist.

Until then, there are some great movies out there to distract you from that runny nose.

I guarantee Kevin and Bob will help you feel better — in spite of the mess.

See you at the movies,

Grandpa Jim

Yesterday was gorgeous in Dallas. The high temperature was 83 degrees Fahrenheit (28.3 Celsius) with low humidity and bright sunshine. Overnight, the low was 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 Celsius). After the long hot Texas summer, my definition of the change to milder and more pleasant weather is when the overnight temperature dips below 70 Fahrenheit (21.1 Celsius). It did that, fall was in the morning air, and the timing could not have been better. Yesterday, September 22, 2013 was the first day of autumn.

Yesterday was the autumnal equinox. “Equinox” is a conjunction of the Latin words “aequus,” meaning “equal,” and “nox,” meaning night. Equinox is short-hand way to say the length of the night is equal to the length of the day. This happens only twice in our year: once on the first day of fall (autumnal equinox) and once again on the first day of spring (vernal equinox). On those two days, the sun is directly over the equator. When this happens, the Earth is not tilted away or toward Sol, our sun, and the length of the day is the same at all points on the Earth’s surface.

For the Northern Hemisphere, this means the cool days are arriving. On the autumnal or fall equinox, our Sol is heading due south and away from us. On that day, it passes directly over the mid-section, the equator, of our globe. Although I welcome the pleasant weather with the top down on the convertible and my wife’s hair blowing in the moderate winds and basking sunshine, there is, nonetheless, a sadness in the air for us Northerners.

Perhaps it was around the first day of autumn in 1933 that Oliver Hood wrote the words for “You Are My Sunshine” on the back of a brown paper sack:

You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
You’ll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away.

You told me once, dear
You really loved me
And no one else could come between
But now you’ve left me
And love another
You have shattered all my dreams;

You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
You’ll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away.

There is a decidedly melancholy lilt to this famous tune about our sunshine going away. The song was appropriated by Jimmie Davis, who used the winsome country and western lyrics to sing his way to the governorship of Louisiana in 1944 and 1960. Today, it is one of the state songs of Louisiana and has been recorded by numerous artists, including Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Johnny Cash, to name just a few. In fact, the song has become so popular and so sung that it is no longer considered country. It is now a part of our culture. The sun leaving and our skies turning grey with the encroachment of winter are a part of us. We shall miss your bright rays and appreciate the comforts of the lingering fall as we watch our sunshine depart for the South.

On the other side of winter is the vernal or spring equinox. On that day, March 20, 2014, Sol, our sun, again crosses the equator, but this time on his way back North. Having enjoyed his six-month sojourn to the lands and waters of the Southern Hemisphere, he returns. On that bright day, we will lift our eyes to the skies and raise our voices with the Beatles in the 1969 song written by George Harrison, “Here Comes the Sun,” considered by many to be the most famous sun song ever:

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
It’s all right, it’s all right

As the sun turns and moves so do we. For those of us to the North, it is with a happy sadness we watch him leave in fall and a welcome gladness we await his return in spring. I think it the same for those in the South, just reversed in their times. We greet each equinox for the change it brings, and between the two we learn to appreciate well the next as it approaches.

You are my sunshine, please don’t take my sunshine away.

I know you won’t.

Here comes the sun, it’s all right, it’s all right, here comes the sun.

And may it always be so,

Grandpa Jim

The little guy did it. Voyager 1, “The Little Spacecraft That Could,” has. It has – officially – exited our Solar System.

“Big deal,” you say, “just look for the ‘Exit’ sign and leave.”

It’s not that close or that easy to see the boundary of our solar system. Sol, our sun, defines the solar system with the planets attracted to it and held in their circling places by the sun. The line we’re looking for is the edge of the solar system. Step over the line and you’re beyond the sun’s reach, the sun no longer influences your behavior, and you can do whatever you like without risk of a burn.

The problem is no man or man-made thing has ever crossed that line.

No longer.

The 12-person Voyager 1 staff has been analyzing the data sent back from the spacecraft. This is an interesting situation. Voyager 1 is no longer new technology. The little guy was launched on September 5^th 1977. At that time, over 36 years ago, it was built with an 8-track tape recorder to store and play back information. The play-back is every six months. Since Voyager is roughly 11.7 billion miles from Earth, the transmitting signals take about 17 hours to get home to the team. That’s using a 23-watt transmitter, which is equivalent to a refrigerator light bulb. So, this is the image I see, a refrigerator light bulb almost 12 billion miles away in space blinking slowly in code to transmit 6-months of data.

Now, the team back here is tried and true, well experienced in their craft — the top voyager expert is now 77 and has been working on the project since 1972. But, the team was booted out of their fancy laboratory digs and sent to cramped quarters down the street. Follow me here. So, in concept, we now have a veteran and decorated team but with somewhat antiquated equipment in a noisy-neon strip center trying to pick up the signals from an 8-track recorder relayed by a refrigerator light bulb 12 billion miles away slowly trying to blink back six months of data. Then, the data itself must be converted, analyzed and interpreted. As you can imagine, this signal thing and line-in-space thing may take a while to sort out.

And, it has.

But, the data is in — finally.

Voyager 1 exited the Solar System last August 2012.

Old news is good news, and it certainly is.

Congratulations, Voyager 1!

Now, it’s just 40,000 years until Voyager 1 reaches another planetary system and can deliver its payload: “The Golden Record.”

That’s right, Voyager 1 has a real gold phonograph record packaged with a cartridge, needle and instructions how to build a record player. It doesn’t stop there. Once those aliens figure out their 8-tracks won’t work and finally slap that golden vinyl onto their newly built turntable, the music can begin: “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry, Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony,” and “Dark Was the Night” by Blind Willie Johnson. And, then the sounds: “Morse Code as heard by Ships” and “The Smack of a Kiss followed by a Mother Talking to a Baby,” to name just a few.

I love Voyager 1. I really do. I’m just wondering — thinking mind you — if the message is — maybe — just a little dated.

Oh well, it’s too late now. We’ll just have to wait another 40,000 years to get the cassette back from those aliens.

I wonder if, when we build our player and turn on the sound, we’ll hear this 80,000 years from now:

If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you’re going to San Francisco
You’re gonna meet some gentle people there

That’s not too bad.

It may be worth the wait.

Keep going, little guy.

I like your music.

Grandpa Jim

PS: Like the human race, Voyager 1 is persistent and makes do with what’s it got. You gotta love that spaceship. Go, little guy, were behind you. Far behind, but behind you, nevertheless. And, send a bark or two back from way out there to little Pluto. He remembers your passing and misses you much. It’s that way with little guys and gals, whatever their race.

It’s cotton harvest time in Texas.

Cotton is a soft fluffy fiber that grows in a boll (protective capsule) around the cotton seeds. The small shrub-like cotton plant is native to warm regions around the globe, and the lambs-wool plant was independently domesticated at different locations on separate continents in different ages. Cotton fabrics appear to have existed in Egypt over 10,000 years ago. Through the rest of the world, pieces of worn cotton shirts and socks have been discovered in Mexico (3,500 BC), India (3,000 BC), Peru (2,500 BC) and in the southwestern United States (500 BC). It may be fair to say that spun and woven cellulose fibers from the cotton plant have clothed our ancestors since the beginning of time, apparently viewed by them as an attractive and washable alternative to fig leaves and other natural coverings.

The English name “cotton” derives from the Arabic “qutn,” and the term “cotton” apparently entered into common use about 1400 AD.

Back to today and the Texas cotton harvest.

Uncle Joe first uses a chemical defoliant to allow the leaves of the cotton plant to dry and drop, leaving the bolls which have already burst open revealing the soft cotton. Here you see the defoliated fields of cotton waiting to be harvested:

Driving a cotton stripper, Uncle Joe removes the bolls from the stalks. Here is a picture from inside the cotton stripper. To the sides are the rows that have been stripped. Ahead are the rows about to be stripped.

Next the cotton is transferred to a module builder. In the builder, the newly harvested cotton is compacted into huge bricks (modules). You may be looking at the first cotton module of the season.

The modules are picked up on flat-bed trailers and transported to the cotton gin. Hand-operated gins have been around forever, but the first modern mechanical gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1793.The cotton gin separates the fibers from the seeds, so the fibers can be processed into clothing and other cotton products, like diapers and $100 bills (Yep, U.S. paper currency is composed of 75% cotton).

Aunt Martha operates the local cotton gin and has for over 50 years. She takes those cotton-boll modules, and using Eli’s new machining techniques, brushes out the seeds (which can be replanted or made into oils and feeds). Then she bales the soft cotton fibers for sale around the world.

The United States is the leading exporter of cotton in the world, and Texas is the #1 cotton-producing state. Texas is responsible for about 25% of the U.S. cotton crop, and the Lone Star State has over 6 million acres (9,000 square miles) of cotton fields stretching across its length.

Louisiana is another close-by, cotton-growing state. Both states have their share of cotton, as musically noted by Johnny Cash and Credence Clearwater Revival in their renditions of the song, “Cotton Fields Back Home”:

When I was a little bitty baby
My mama would rock me in the cradle,
In them old cotton fields back home;

It was down in Louisiana,
Just about a mile from Texarkana,
In them old cotton fields back home.

Cotton is an old friend in the U.S., ranking #5 on the list of major agricultural crops: 1) corn, 2) soybeans, 3) hay, 4) wheat, 5) cotton, 6) sorghum (milo), and 7) rice.

When it comes to cotton, the United States is in good company. Across our planet, the top 10 cotton-producing countries are: 1) China, 2) India, 3) United States, 4) Pakistan, 5) Brazil, 6) Uzbekistan, 7) Turkey, 8) Australia, 9) Turkmenistan, and 10) Argentina. The top exporters are: 1) United States, 2) India, 3) Brazil, 4) Australia, and 5) Uzbekistan. And the top nonproducing importing countries are Korea, Taiwan, Russia and Japan. Everyone loves cotton.

Although cotton is with us just about everywhere, it is not the biggest crop in the world. By quantity harvested worldwide, the leaders are: 1) sugar cane, 2) corn, 3) rice, and 4) wheat. Cotton is way down the lists. Cotton is not even in the top 20 by quantity and is only number 16 by value of the harvest.

Cotton may not be the biggest crop in the world, but cotton is certainly the most felt, the closest to us on our daily travels, and a comfort when we close our eyes at night.

I don’t know about you, but my shirt’s on to cotton.

Grandpa Jim

Syria is in the news. I listened to President Obama last night as he talked about Syria. Syria has been in the news for a long while.

The Syrian Arab Republic, Syria, is a country to the east, to the rising sun. It is the center of the Levant. “Levant” is an old word which means “rising,” from the Latin “levare” meaning to lift or raise. It is the land where those on the earliest vessels navigating the Mediterranean Sea looked to the east and saw the bright globe of the sun break the horizon and warm the growing day.

Syria is the center of the Levant. The country borders the Sea, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. The Levant, Syria, is the crossroads of western Asia. Today, it is the crossroads of the world, the place where the words and thoughts of all the peoples of all the planet travel and pass.

The country is described as a land of fertile plains, high mountains and deserts. It is as diverse in the beauty of its terrain as it is in the variety of its many peoples. It is a place of variation and variety, and it is home to all within its boundaries.

Damascus, ash-Sham, is the capital city of Syria. Know as the City of Jasmine, Damascus is one of the oldest places where peoples have gathered. The name Damascus has been found in the records of the Egyptian pharaohs from the 15^th century BC. Carbon dating in the area shows settlements dating back to 9,000 BC. Damascus is mentioned in the Bible in the Book of Genesis, and an ancient historian records the founding of Damascus by Uz, the son of Abraham, the great-grandson of Noah. The city of the sweet flower, the jasmine, has been long the home of man and woman and their children, the families of the earth.

To reflect on the history of a land, the beauty of its vistas and the many families and friends who travel its roads and watch the evening sky fade to quiet night may help to see the bonds that exist between us and the common ground we all call home.

To the rising sun, the Levant, Syria,

Grandpa Jim

The view out the fourth-floor windows is to the bluffs of the Minnesota River Valley. In her bed, Mom is resting peacefully.

“Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door” is a song written by Bob Dylan for the 1973 film “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.” The song has the classic Dylan reprise of line and note. It went to #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 for singles.  The universal message of the closing lines of the opening stanza is: “It’s getting dark, too dark for me to see; I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.”

Mom is “knockin’ on heaven’s door.” The hospice nurse stopped by during the day. I had night watch last evening and was resting in the hotel. The nurse told my sister it would only be a matter of days.

I wonder what she’s thinking.

A branch of the Sioux Indians or Dakhota Nation live in the Minnesota River Valley. They prefer their name “Lakhota” to distinguish themselves from the larger assemblage of Native Americans. The more local group here — and this building is built on a portion of a reservation — is the Middle Sioux or Wichiyena. They are still very much alive and well. When I drive by the reservation homes, the garage doors are decorated with wonderfully painted buffaloes and birds.

Birds are important to the Dakhota. In the Sioux language,”bird” is “zintkazila.” All animals are important to the Indian, even small animals. Wrens are small animals with loud voices. The quick moving flycatchers have a rich, bubbling chatter of talk. To the Wichiyena, these are the “zintkazila cikala” for their quick-moving zinting and their ever-cikala chattering calling.

Along the bluffs of the Minnesota River, you may hear an old saying: “Enjoy the chatter of the birds, but don’t be late for supper.” The Wichiyena would laugh to say that, and the settlers would laugh to hear it. They knew what it meant.

The birds appear a bit foolish. The Lakhota and settlers, in their ways, thought themselves somewhat wiser.

To parahrase the Apostle Paul, in a line often attributed incorrectly to Shakespeare: “Suffer fools gladly, for you are wise.”

Who are the foolish and who are the wise? Perhaps the greatest exposition on Wisdom is the book of Proverbs. There we find that to be truly wise is simply to make right choices. Right choice is wisdom. Although watching and listening to the birds is enjoyable, don’t let the supper get cold before you head home. A good choice — that’s wisdom. Suffer the fool gladly, because those possessed of right choice know when to leave for dinner and sound conversation, or at least words they understand. I don’t know that the birds are really that foolish in their chatter, but I do know it is important both to choose well and to let others have their say. The chatter may be quite enjoyable once I know my place.

This is my place now. I may be a bit foolish in my statements and actions, but I do notice others are patient with me and appear to suffer me gladly.  I am thankful for that and for the wise sayings of the Wichiyena.

It is good to have friends along the bluffs of the Minnesota.

Grandpa Jim

Saturday, August 24, 2013, Uncle Joe and Brother Charles completed this year’s corn harvest.

Here you see the combine beginning to go after the last few acres.

This year, Uncle Joe had about 1,300 acres in corn. Corn is the biggest crop. It was a close one to even make a crop. Normally, the last freeze in Central Texas is around March 15^th, the Ides of March. This year the thermometer dipped to 22 degrees Fahrenheit (5.6 Celsius) on the morning of April 26^th. That is an extremely cold start for young corn. Uncle Joe was amazed. He said you can lose the entire crop when it freezes that hard so late in the season. There were some damaged stands, but the corn largely just kept growing. It was a miracle.

Here you see the kernels moving from the combine’s bin to the grain buggy.

Joe says this year’s yields are pretty decent, averaging about 100 bushels of corn to the acre. The corn harvest was delayed by late summer rains. Uncle Joe and Charles started July 24^th and finished yesterday evening. That’s a month to get the corn harvested and delivered to the grain elevators for market. Uncle Joe said the grain elevator operators kept closing earlier and earlier, and he had some of the last corn to be harvested this year.

Here you see the combine on the last few rows.

After the corn, there won’t be much of a break. The cotton fields are ready to be defoliated. Once the leaves fall off, the white cotton bolls can be stripped from the stalks and pressed into truck-sized modules for transport to the cotton gin. At the gin, the seed is separated and the raw fiber baled and sent on to market. Aunt Martha manages the local cotton gin and has for over fifty years.

Cotton is the last of the four crops harvested each year: The first crop is the winter wheat, then the milo, next the corn and finally the cotton. Cotton and wheat are the slowest to harvest, with the cotton stripper processing about 40-50 acres a day and wheat reel moving at a 60-acre pace on a good day. For corn and milo, the combine with the big headers can handle about 70-75 acres per day. Both the wheat and milo harvests have been pretty good. Uncle Joe was the first to the elevators with milo. The wheat averaged 58 bushels an acre, and milo returned at 4,000 pounds for a typical acre.

The wheat harvest started about a month late this year on June 1^st and lasted about a week. The transition to milo began on June 12^th and lasted until July 22^nd. As noted above, corn started on July 24^th and just finished on August 23^rd. Now, the cotton begins.

As you can see, there is not much time to rest for the farmer at his work, which is why Uncle Joe and Charles were happy to watch the last rows of corn fall at sunset last night.

When the cotton is done, the fields need to be prepared for the next round of crops; and then it starts over again.

At harvest’s end, another day’s begun.

My hat’s off to the farmer,

Grandpa Jim

What is a blue moon and when is it?

Last Tuesday night, August 20, 2013, after I arrived home to Texas from Minnesota, there was a blue moon. I didn’t have anything to do with it, and the moon was not blue, but I did notice there was a full moon.

A blue moon can be confusing.

One lunar cycle, the lunation or time between full moons, is about 29.53 days, which is slightly less than a calendar month. If you divide the 365.25 days in the solar year by this lunation number of 29.53 days, you discover there should be 12.37 lunations or full moons in a year. This is a ridiculous result. You cannot have a 0.37 full moon. It would not be full. It would be a 1/3 moon, not a full moon at all. So, Mother Nature steps in and corrects the astronomers. She saves up those 1/3^rd moons. Every two to three year, when the three thirds equals a whole, she takes that saved full moon in her pocket and drops it into a month of her choosing to make the lunar calendar right. Great Job, Mother Nature!

That’s what I understand to be the blue moon, the extra full moon in a solar year that normally has only 12 full moons. The lucky-13 full moon is the blue moon.

Unfortunately, this whole Mother Nature thing is apparently confusing to the scientists, astronomers and writers of the Farmers’ Almanac. They agree that the blue moon is an extra full moon in a 2-to-3-year cycle, and they agree it is not blue (which is a whole other discussion of why it is called blue when it isn’t blue — which we don’t have time for in this post); but some of the experts want to define the extra moon as the second full moon occurring in a calendar month which normally has only its one full moon, while other experts want to say it is the third full moon in a season of the year with four full moon, rather than the normal three. Remember the seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter) are the three-month intervals between the solstices (longest and shortest days) and the equinoxes (days of equal light and dark), as opposed to the calendar quarters. This debate over calendar quarters versus seasonal quarters does not change the fact that there is an extra full moon, but it does change the full moon you pick to be the blue moon.

The bottom line here is that the blue moon last Tuesday was blue according to the seasonal approach, but the moon was not blue according to the calendar approach. For the seasonal believers, the next blue moon has been selected to be May 21, 2016. For the calendar followers, the next blue moon will be July 31, 2015. Neither will be blue.

I hope this is as confusing to you as it is to me.

There are blue-colored moons. This visible effect is caused by smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere. The blue-colored moon observed over Edinburgh, Scotland in 1950 was caused by moonlight traveling through a cloud of particles from forest fires in Canada. Blue moons have also been reported after the Krakatoa, Indonesia volcanic blast in 1883, the Mount St. Helens, USA explosion in 1980, the El Chichon, Mexico volcano in 1983, and the Mount Pinatubo, Phillipines volcanic activity in 1991.

However determined or observed, it is the rarity of the blue moon which apparently resulted in the colloquial expression: “Once in a blue moon.”

“Once in a blue moon.”

I like the phrase. A blue moon is something special. I’ve seen one in my life, and it was to me truly blue. An extra full moon is full, but it is not blue.

Sorry, astronomers, scientists and writers of Farmers’ Almanac, I’m sticking with my blue moon.

You know it when you see it,

Grandpa Jim