Happy New Year

The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if new-born;
There was that nameless splendor everywhere
That wild exhilaration in the air.

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82)

I LOVE SEPTEMBER!  It has always been (at least since 1978 and my journey as a Mom) my New Year's Day.  Kids were back to school, temps were back to normal (except today) and everything wonderful about fall was beginning. I know autumn doesn't really begin till the 21st but today I can change the wreath on the door, put up some sunflowers, some fall leaves and even a pumpkin decoration or two.  I'm not a huge fan of hunting but it brings Jeff home for a week or two and that's good enough for me. We celebrate many fall birthdays and anniversaries and even our ambition seems to soar as we prod through our days at 50 or 60 degrees and not 90.  It's a time for great harvests, full moons and bonfires. Today begins the seventh (septem) month in the old Roman calendar. When Julius Caesar decided to start the year with January instead of March, September kept its name but not its position. We love it right where it is!  On September 1, 1849
A photograph of the full Moon was taken by Samuel Humphrey at Canandaigua, New York. It is the earliest surviving photo of Earth’s satellite. That's pretty cool as we live so close to Canandaigua. Here's the story (as appeared in the Farmer's Almanac)

One-hundred-fifty years ago, on the night of September 1, 1849, the nearly full Moon appeared over the town of Canandaigua, New York. At 10:30 P.M., Samuel D. Humphrey slid a highly polished, silver-plated copper sheet measuring 2–3/4x1–3/4 inches into his camera, which was pointed at the Moon.

Humphrey then exposed the light-sensitive plate to the shining Moon nine times, varying the length of exposure from 0.5 seconds to 2 minutes. After developing the plate with mercury vapor, he sent his daguerreotype to Harvard College.

Louis Daguerre, the Frenchman who explained the secret of the world's first photographic technique in 1839, had daguerreotyped a faint image of the Moon, but the plate was soon lost in a fire. John W. Draper of New York City is credited with making the first clear daguerreotype of the Moon in March 1840, but this also was destroyed in a fire.

By 1851, the Harvard College Observatory was producing detailed, world-renowned daguerreotypes of the Moon, doubtless inspired by Humphrey, whose 1849 daguerreotype is now considered by many to be the earliest extant photograph of the Moon.