Poor Will’s Almanack for the Final Week of Middle Fall.

In the last week of October, I often go to watch the robins migrating along the river near my house.

The first time I saw their great flocks was on October 21, 1982. I had gone to the woods expecting to find the end of everything, all the leaves down, the flowers shriveled. Instead of desolation, I found a paradise of birds: I'd never seen the woods so alive, the robins chirping and fluttering around me.

On the same day in 1983, again I found a large flock of robins at the river bank, and then further up stream, the woods full of their calls.

The same thing happened in late October of 1984.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio program that cleans up after abandoned coal mines plans to undertake 53 projects next year, nearly three times as many as in 2007.

The Columbus Dispatch reports Monday that the work to restore land and streams is being expanded thanks to more federal money. A change in the formula for dividing coal company taxes among the states has increased Ohio's share, from $7.5 million in 2007 to $18.4 million for next year.

Terry Van Offeren manages the cleanup program for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and says the state could use even more funding. He says the state is finding about 15 new "problem spots" every week since beginning a new effort in June to identify old coal sites that pose environmental or health threats.

Hosts John Corker and Casey McCluskey speak with special guest, Dr. Steven Schlozman, the world’s foremost authority on Zombie neurobiology.  Dr. Schlozman is a clinical psychologist, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and an expert on the inner workings of the living dead.

Food pantries around the state say they’re seeing unprecedented numbers of senior citizens needing help. Activists from across the state met for a summit on dealing with hunger among seniors today. Lisa Hamler-Fugitt with the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks says many seniors aren’t able to take care of their nutrition needs, which she says will cost Medicare and other programs in the long run.

Hunger is preventable and it's time that we get our priorities straight," says Hamler-Fugitt. "When the greatest generation, those who have built the country that we live in, now have to beg for food, there is something wrong."

Poor Will’s Almanack for the Third Week of Middle Fall.

Wendell Berry wrote about today:

The woods is shining this morning. 
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground or fall,
hang full of light in the air still.

In this third week of Middle Fall, the oaks and the osage, white mulberries, magnolias, ginkgoes and the late black and sugar maples move towards full color and many woodlots still shine in the morning, red, gold and green.

Starlings cackle and whistle in the shining trees.  The last cabbage butterflies look for cabbages in the garden.  The last daddy longlegs hunt the flowerbeds.  At night, hardy field crickets fill in for the silent katydids.

Dr. Meg Sullivan, an American Pediatrician serving as Timmy Global Health's Medical Director in Guatemala, will share stories of her amazing work practicing medicine in another part of the world.