Blessed Thanksgiving

Commemorate the Fall Season With a Cornucopia Basket
By Terri Simmons

The weather is turning and there is now frost on the pumpkin in the early mornings. It is time to start getting ready for the turn of the season. The trees are losing their leaves and stand as stark reminders that winter will soon be here. One of the symbols we use to signify abundance and the changing of the seasons is the Horn of Plenty. Cornucopias are horn shaped and filled with a variety of fruits and vegetables.

The first thing to do when assembling your cornucopia is determining where you are going to be placing it. If it is going to be a centerpiece for the table, you can get a fairly large cornucopia. The nice thing about this kind of basket is that you can use it over and over again. The basket can be of any kind of material, however, for the traditional style, select one that is wicker.

The items that you put in your Horn of Plenty can be as diverse as the ideas as the number of people creating them. Time-honored tradition shows the symbolic horn filled with inexhaustible gifts of celebratory fruits. You can use dried gourds, corn and other vegetables interspersed with dried leaves and flowers. Make sure that your gifts are flowing out of the basket. Since it is the Autumn season, you might want to keep your color scheme in the appropriate colors. Use burnished reds, subdued oranges, rich greens, earthy browns and yellows. You can put a nice bright bow on the basket for a finishing touch.

Now, if you like things more contemporary - you can really get your creative juices flowing. Instead of using wicker for your cornucopia basket - use metal, plastic or even glass! Don’t want to use fruits and vegetable? How about candy, flowers or feathers? Or perhaps a combination of all three! Be bold and daring with your colors - use vibrant black, vivid turquoise, brilliant purple, radiant reds and luscious pinks! Get shiny curling ribbon and put lengths of it throughout your basket of gifts! Remember, let your imagination be your guide.

Cornucopia baskets are to be used over and over again. Start a new tradition in your family by having a Horn of Plenty centerpiece on your table for the holidays! Have a different one for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas! Show your loved ones how much you care with a handmade gift designed with love. Good Luck and go have fun!!

Terri currently works as an Human Resource Manager for a small company. She is the proud mother of an ex-Marine and 2 teenage girls. She is the President and CEO of http://www.everlastingbaskets.com a website that focuses on fall gift baskets

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Fall - The Other Crappie Season
By Ron Kruger

Some serious crappie catchers claim the fall season on Kentucky and Barkley lakes is just as good as the spring fling. Some say it is better, mainly because they don’t have much competition. But every one of these slab sultans agree that the average size of the fish they catch after the autumnal equinox is larger than during the spring.

In my honest estimation, fall crappie fishing is not as good as it is during the spring–but it isn’t far behind.

Now is the time to find out where you stand in this debate, because the crappie have moved into the bays, and they’ll be there until the water gets really cold about the end of November.

Actually, there are things I like better about fall crappie fishing. One is the aforementioned lack of competition. Another is the wonderful weather and the beauty of the fall foliage. But the biggest reason is that the best way to catch fall crappie is to cast for them, and that’s my favorite way to fish.

For the most part, during the spring crappie strike lures to protect their spawning areas. They don’t want anything near their beds, and they’ll literally wear themselves out and lose some weight keeping all the other creatures at bay. Casting works then, but not as well as dangling something right in front of their faces.

During the fall, on the other hand, they move shallow to put on their winter weight. They follow the bait, and they hit our fakes like a sumo wrestler beefing up for a big match. That’s why the average size is bigger.

I fish for them differently during the fall, because they act differently. During the spring, crappie sort of homestead a small area for a few weeks to do the family thing; but during the fall they prowl around like a bunch of hungry hobos.

They’re on the move, so to find them and keep up with them, I stay on the move, too. Crappie fishing during the fall is a lot like bass fishing. I don’t exactly “run and gun,” but I don’t sit in one place for long, either. As long as I’m catching fish, I’ll stay in the same general area, but once the action slows, I move on to greener waters.

At this time of year, crappie move in and out and up and down a bank, depending upon what the minnows are doing, and minnows are almost always moving. If you think the only way to fish for crappie is to sit in one place, you’re not likely to think fall crappie fishing is very good.

When they’re not feeding, crappie move out to and hang around brush and such in deeper water, usually 10- to 15-feet deep. Even though they are less active, you can catch them there by dangling minnows and tub jigs. But when they’re hungry, which seems to be most of the time, they move up where the minnows and other tasty creatures congregate along the bank.

My motto for fall crappie fishing is: dangle when they’re deep and cast when they’re shallow. I not only find casting for crappie more active and entertaining, it is a great way to cover a lot of water when fish are scattered or on the move.

The best baits I’ve found are my own one-sixteenth-ounce Flair-Spins and Road Runners of the same weight, but you can also catch them with small crankbaits, tube jigs and, of course, curly-tail grubs. A light- to medium-action spinning rod, with six-pound-test line will handle all these bait well. Fish them just fast enough to keep them from getting hung up too much. Generally, the slower you go the more often crappie hit.

You can find feeding fall crappie on most banks that have minnows, so when I’m looking for the fish, I’m actually looking for the minnows. But there is one particular type of bank I like best. These are banks that slope off at about a 45-degree angle and are loaded with stumps from shallow to deep. These banks have been good to me for many years, but with the recent dominance of black crappie in the population, they are even better.

Just how deep crappie will be on a given day depends upon a lot of factors, but on these sloping stump banks, they’ll be somewhere between one and 15 feet, so I usually hold the boat at 15 or 18 feet, cast up shallow and work the bait all the way back to the boat.

At the beginning of this searching retrieve, I hold the rod tip high to keep the bait up on a slow retrieve. The closer it gets to me, the slower I go and the lower I hold the rod tip. During the last part of the retrieve, I’ll pause often to let the bait drop. What I try to do is keep the bait just above the stumps throughout the entire retrieve.

A sloping stump field adjacent to deep brush (preferably along a creek channel) is perfect. You can move back and forth, and up and down, according to the whims of the fish and stuff your live-well with fat fall fillets during this “other” crappie season.

Ron Kruger has been an outdoor writer/photographer/editor for over 30 years.

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Orchid Tips - The Fall Season is Here
By Robert Roy

The fall season for orchids is an important one. It is one where a great number of the orchid plants need care as well as the change in the basic requirements. Most orchids use this season as a “rest period” to get ready to produce blooms in the winter or spring.

From the summer season to the fall there is a less a requirement for water as the temperature decreases. You will need to monitor this closely. Don’t forget it you see wrinkling on the leaves this means that you need more H2O.

As a general rule this time of the year requires the use of an orchid fertilizer richer in phosphorous is needed to boost the bloom potential. This means that there is higher percentage in nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium in the fertilizer mixture. As you use fertilizer on the orchid plants use it as half strength and generally once a week.

I like to fertilizer after I have watered the plant. Once again be sure that you allow the water and fertilizer to run out of the pot. Leaving water and fertilizer in the pot allows root rot to destroy the orchid - very quickly.

The temperature is also getting cooler in most parts of the country during the fall. So if you have plants outdoors you may start to think about getting them indoors. Most orchids can do well in with temps in the 50’s and few do ok into the forties. I like to suggest that your plants come inside when the night temps are in the mid fifties.

Now let’s get to some specifics for some of the different genera. For cattleyas there growth rate will tend to slow as the fall progresses. The sheaths on the catts will show some changes indicative of blooming over the next six months. Don’t forget the fertilizer and watering. These plants do well in bright lighting.

Also, if you are bringing your orchid indoors from being outside check carefully for any pests that may be clinging to the plant.

Cymbidiums may start blooming in the fall and they need to be in shaded cool areas. Cyms have a genetically based warmth tolerance but for the best blooms they need an area that is shaded and somewhat cooler. The spikes with the flowers, called inflorescence, needs to be staked to prevent the heavy flowers from weighting down the spike.

Phalaenopsis are just starting to go through the next stage to ready for blooms in the late winter and spring. They need the cool difference in daytime and nighttime temps. It is recommended that there be about a 10 - 15 degree Fahrenheit difference.

Phalaenopsis also need to be watered and fertilized less often during this first few months of fall. They are resting. It would helpful to give them a fertilizer with a higher phosphorous percentage to help boost the blossom potential. This fertilizer is also called “blossom booster”.

Dendrobiums also need a “blossom booster” as well at this time of the year. Remember their flowers are usually plentiful and grow toward the top of the spike making them top heavy. Use a stake to help hold them erect and be sure that the pot is heavy enough to keep itself upright.

The green leaved Paphs are also getting ready to have flowers. The shafts are displaying the spikes. Be careful with these orchids as a sudden heat spell will prove disasterous to the new blooms. Keep them in a cooler area and with good air circulation.

Paphs don’t like to get dry so be careful with watering. If you were watering twice a week try cutting down to once. But while doing this test your medium with the dry tip of a pencil. Stick it down about an inch or two into the pot, if the tip comes out wet your fine.

This should help you to have great orchids both in the fall season and beyond.

Get the Guide to Growing Great Orchids, Mastering Orchids, a 70 page guide for half price ($9.95) Just subscribe to our monthly free orchid newsletter, Orchidaceae.
http://www.orchids-plus-more.com/orchid-newsletter.html

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A Garden Is Only As Good As Its Gardening Equipment by Ben Brook

You would like to start a flower garden, but since you have not done much gardening, you do not have much of anything in the way of gardening equipment. So, in order to get your garden off to the right start, you should make sure that you have excellent gardening equipment.

Gardening Equipment Example #1: The Edger

A garden is marked by its edges, and you certainly want to make sure that they are well-defined. Thus, and important piece of gardening equipment to have is an edger. The edger makes sure that you mark the edges in the most even way possible.

Gardening Equipment Example #2: The Garden Claw

A garden claw is perhaps the most important example of gardening equipment that you can have. Something that you never want to see in a garden is weeds, and a garden claw helps to get rid of them. A garden claw is also very important in preparing the ground for a garden, because it helps to aerate the soil.

Gardening Equipment Example #3: The Rake

A rake is especially important during the fall season, when leaves have a tendency to get in the way of the beauty of a garden. However, a rake is also very necessary for evenly dispersing other gardening material, such as when you want to use pebble rocks to blanket your garden.

For More Information

These are just three of many different examples of gardening equipment that you might find very helpful when constructing your garden. The kinds of gardening equipment that you choose will have to do with a few factors.

Firstly, it will have to do with the kind of garden that you want. A flower garden is, after all, different from a rock garden! In both cases, a rake might be needed, but a rake will probably be needed m ore in the case of the rock garden.

When it comes to figuring out where you should go to find gardening equipment, the first place that you should look is your local home improvement center. This is usually the most convenient option, since home improvement centers usually have garden centers as well.

Of course, if you do not know what equipment you need, you should ask for help from the professionals at the garden center, or you can search the internet. However, make sure that the websites you choose to get information from are reputable. You are sure to find the right gardening equipment for you with the proper research.

For more information about gardening please visit my Gardening and Moon Phases website where you can find more articles and information about gardening equipment

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Thanksgiving Treasures, Pilgrims Progress
By Paul Davis

As I prepared for Thanksgiving and sought to delve deeper into our national history, I found a wonderful painting from Benjamin West. I also discovered a brief write-up by Ann Urhy Abrams on the significance of the painting which is here below in the following three paragraphs.

In 1682 shortly after venturing onto his new American territory, William Penn met chiefs of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware tribes under great elm at Shackamaxon to sign a treaty of mutual consideration and peace. In exchange for gifts, it is said, the chiefs agreed to sell their land to the Quaker leader whom they called “Brother Onas,” the native word for “pen” or “quill.”

This meeting was historically significant because from it came the first legal agreement between Europeans and Native Americans. Penn’s generosity, so the legend goes, was rare, for no other European settlers had made such friendly overtures to the natives or agreed to pay for land that had been legally ceded to them by the British government.

Almost a century later, the legend was memorialized by the famous American painter Benjamin West in William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians When He Founded the Province of Pennsylvania in North America.

William Penn sought first to be a Christian before being an American. Penn, the founder of Pennyslvania, said: “If men will not be governed by God, they will be ruled by tyrants.”

William Penn knew all too well the fallibility of governments. Penn wisely stated: “Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too.”

On January 1, 1681, William Penn wrote to a friend concerning the land given to him, declaring he would: “Make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civil liberty, in all opposition to all unchristian…practices.”

The next three paragraphs I found when searching U.S. Constitutional case law online. It has been taken from Find Law for Legal Professionals. It is a vital part of our Colonial history that we should remember and revisit.

Prior to any European contact, Indian tribes owned and occupied all of the land that now comprises the United States. The growing presence of agents of European countries, the displacement of Indian tribes resulting from war or otherwise and the establishment of non-Indian settlements began to raise questions about the nature of ownership and title to lands. The United States Supreme Court first examined these issues in Johnson v. M’Intosh , 21 U.S. (8 Wheat) 543 (1823). Chief Justice Marshall concluded that the tribes held their lands by “Indian title.” This gave the tribes the right to occupy the land and to retain possession of it. 21 U.S. (8 Wheat) at 574. However, he also concluded that “discovery” by European governments vested in those governments the “ultimate dominion” in the land subject only to Indian title. Id . Thus, the capacity of the tribes to convey title to their land was limited to the discovering government. These principles of Indian title have endured over time.

They were more recently summarized:

It very early became accepted doctrine in this Court that although fee title to lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign - first the discovering European nation and later the original states and the United States - a right of occupancy in the Indian tribes was nevertheless recognized. That right, sometimes called Indian Title and good against all but the sovereign, could be terminated only by sovereign act. Once the United States was organized and the Constitution adopted, these tribal rights to Indian lands became the exclusive province of the federal law. Indian title, recognized to be only a right of occupancy, was extinguishable only by the United States.

Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida , 414 U.S. 661, 667 (1974).

Treaties between the United States and Indian tribes became a primary means of extinguishing Indian title and opening lands for settlement. Indian treaties were recognized as “not a grant of rights to the Indians, but a grant of rights from them - a reservation of those not granted.” United States v. Winans , 198 U.S. 371 (1905). Tribes would typically cede vast territories to the United States in exchange for some measure of consideration and, at the same time, reserve some of its aboriginal territory for its continued occupancy as a homeland. These tracts became known as “reservations.”

When you consider how the United States government basically stole the Indians land and then tried to justify it through the “highest and best use” theory of real estate, it shows and reminds us that not everything we do in the name of America is morally right. Despite our media and military machinery we do err and make mistakes. Undoubtedly stripping the Indians of their land and making the black man till it remains a dark part of our national history.

William Penn, according to legend, gives us a bright and encouraging past to revisit with his dealings with the Indians. One thing is for sure. We who live in the USA should be thanking God for our land. It came at a great price and sacrifice.

Paul Davis is a life coach (relational & professional), traveling minister and fitness trainer. Paul is the author of several books including Breakthrough for a Broken Heart; and God vs. Religion. Paul is a popular worldwide keynote speaker, creative consultant, humor being, adventurer, explorer, mediator, minister, liberator and dream-maker.

Paul’s compassion for people & passion to travel has taken him to over 50 countries of the world where he has had a tremendous impact. Paul has served in many war-torn, impoverished and tsunami stricken regions of the earth. His nonprofit organization Dream-Maker Ministries is building dreams, breaking limitations and reviving nations.

Paul’s Breakthrough Seminars inspire, revive, awaken, impregnate with purpose, impart the fire of desire, catapult people into a new level of self-awareness, facilitate destiny discovery and dream fulfillment.

Contact Paul to minister, speak at your event or for life coaching: RevivingNations@yahoo.com, 407-967-7553.

For additional info: http://www.DreamMakerMinistries.com, http://www.CreativeCommunications.TV

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