Read This Now - The Sky Is Falling

I'm cleaning out the bookmark folder full of links that I found interesting but never got around to sharing this past fall.  Some of them were time sensitive and wouldn't be worth rehashing now, even if I got in an extra witty line or two.

Others are fairly timeless, if a bit seasonal, like this lovely little piece from The Morning News from back in October.  It seems that every fall Osage Oranges litter the sidewalks near Carl Schurz Park in NYC.  Only Janice Nimura and her kids didn't know that's what it was until this fall...

Or hedge-apple. Or monkey ball, horse-apple, brainfruit. The fruit of the Osage orange tree, Maclura pomifera, a member of the mulberry family, sometimes called bow-wood, because the Osage Indians prized its tensile strength for making weapons.

Read the whole thing it's a treat and will only take about 5 minutes.

Since I worked for a time on a ship built with quite a bit of Osage I have a couple of bonus Osage factoids  for you.  It's purported to be the first botanical sample that Lewis and Clark sent back on their epic journey.  Even more interesting, especially if you're building boats with Osage is the fact that it is so dense it doesn't float.