HUNTING FOR SOME GOOD LUCK

BRONZE FALL LEAF COLOR OF OHIO BUCKEYE

RIPENING BUCKEYE FRUITS

Friday, 8:15 AM.  57 degrees F at the ferry dock, 53 on the back porch.  Wind SW, calm with very light occasional gusts.  The sky is clearing to partly cloudy, from foggy and misty.  The humidity is 94% and the barometer is still steady, at 30.22".  The morning dawned soft and damp, the sun glowing like a dimmed bulb through the filmy atmosphere.  The channel waters were dead calm.  The grass is still wet, the eaves still dripping; things are beginning to dry out a bit, but I will have to postpone mowing the lawn until much later.

   Yesterday I noticed that the Ohio buckeye, Aesculus glabra, on Manypenny Ave.between 4th and 5th Streets, had turned its  bronzy fall leaf color.  As I was inspecting the buckeye fruits still hanging on the tree, a truck stopped and a construction worker got out and walked up to me.

   "Are they ripe yet?"  "I need one to put in my pocket for a good luck charm when I'm deer hunting, I lost the one I had."

   I assured him he could take some and let them ripen until they split open and revealed the "buck eye" inside.  He continued, saying it was a tradition in his family to carry a buckeye in one's pocket for good luck while deer hunting, and besides that his grandmother always carried one somewhere on her person, claiming that it alleviated her arthritis.

  Wow! A two-for-one good luck charm!  I think I'll put one in each pants pocket.  That ought to ensure bagging an eight point buck as well as being able to climb down from the tree stand.