Monday, Oct. 10

Summer is lingering, with the temperatures remaining quite warm for October. The leaves are beginning to change colors and I'll have to capture some photos to include soon. I heard today that the leaves at the higher elevations (in the mountains) have already reached their peak colors, and that our leaves in the valley will be at peak in a week or two.

This is a great week for teachers because we have three days of school and then Thursday and Friday are holidays. I'm not complaining, but I have to teach my evening class at Pellissippi (community college) until late Wed. night, then on Friday night I work at the Hardin Valley football game, so we'll have to wedge activities in between those things. I am looking forward to going to the UT-LSU football game on Saturday. Louisiana State University is the number one ranked team in the United States and should be entertaining to watch. UT is not ranked at all and will be doing well to just survive the game. My brother Mark is coming up from South Carolina to see the game and it will be good to spend some time with him.

In high school football, Jacob's team and my team both won last week and are having successful seasons. If you win more games than the other nearby teams then you qualify for the playoffs, which is the tournament to determine the best team in the state. Hopefully both of our teams will qualify. It would be bad if we end up against each other in the the playoffs (though I think Hardin Valley, my team, would win).

Nancy and I walked around the neighborhood tonight gathering berries, maple tree "whirlygig" seeds, acorns, and other seeds from trees and bushes for her science classes tomorrow. It was amazing the variety we were able to find in such a short time. Just imagine what we could have found walking around our neighborhood in Siantar!