This is the month of negotiating the weather. We want the temperatures to be a little cooler - but not that cold. And definitely some rain after a dry August - but not that much rain. And of course, there is lots of wind in the autumn in Niagara - the Monarch butterflies are flittering their way south - over the escarpment edge. Look up in the sky and you can see vultures and hawks.
We don't have to negotiate snow in September. There was a weather surprise in Colorado yesterday. Denver was 101 degrees F on Monday and the temperature dropped to 32 degrees on Tuesday. With snow - 12 inches in the foothills and mountains and three to six inches around Denver. And it looks like possibly more snow today with a winter weather advisory.
We experienced a snow storm on one of our trips to Durango in September. I am thinking it was in the late 1990s. We had to drive over the mountain pass on completely snow-covered roads that snaked around the edges of mountains. It was a very tense experience. When you go off the road in Ontario, you call CAA. When you go off the road in Colorado, you plummet a few hundred or a thousand feet.
And there is snow on the mountain tops by the middle of September there - but the mountains are in the 4,000 metres and above range.
Our pictures today are in Silverton, Colorado. Given the cold blast that came through, there could be snow there today - it is located at an elevation of 2,840 metres. The winter storm warning says snow accumulations of 8 to 12 inches expected - mainly above 9,000 feet.
We have such a love of salt in our food. Where does this love come from? Is it a natural affinity or deficiency?
"The human body contains many salts, of which sodium chloride (AKA common table salt) is the major one, making up around 0.4 per cent of the body's weight at a concentration pretty well equivalent to that in seawater. So a 50kg person would contain around 200g of sodium chloride - around 40 teaspoons."
What is the purpose of salt in our bodies? Quora.com so often answers these questions:
"Every neuron in your body uses salt to conduct electricity...
And salt regulates water content (and therefore osmotic pressure)
"If you eat too much salt, your kidneys pump it into the bladder, and you pee it out. Even at highconcentrations, a properly functioning kidney will dump excess salt into the bladder. This is such an important function, it's probably why we have two kidneys to do it.
However, if you eat too little salt, or lose too much (sweat, vomit, diarrhea), a condition called hyponatremia, you'll have major problems. Water will flow into your cells, which will now have a higher salt concentration than your blood. This is because water flows through a membrane (like a cell membrane) towards higher salt concentrations. Your cells will swell and may, at high enough concentrations, burst.
Bursting cells = bad news. So, why do we love salt? We love salt because, evolutionarily, eating too much salt is far more advantageous than eating too little."
Today our pictures show the Silverton Shop with the box cars and antique cars in the yard.
