The autumnal equinox happened this week. It’s the official start of fall, when the sun crosses the celestial equator and moves southward. The earth’s axis of rotation is perpendicular to the line connecting the centers of the earth and the sun on this day. Many people believe that the earth experiences 12 hours each of day and night on the equinox. However, this is not exactly the case.

For most of my life, I’ve been passionate about music. Not my own — I barely qualify as a wannabe musician. But I love other people’s music, recorded tunes.

Lola Jean Booth was born at 7:36 p.m. Aug. 29, 2010, to Katherine RoseAnn (Eldridge) and Jordan Gregory Booth of Boulder Creek. She weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces at Sutter Maternity and Surgery Center in Santa Cruz.

The weather has been oddly cold this summer, and it has caused local grape growers to wait longer than usual to harvest their grapes. Santa Cruz County grapes will most likely be harvested about three weeks behind schedule. If the weather stays good, that won’t be a problem. But there is one guaranteed problem: the European wine moth.

After a consistent run of salmon in Monterey Bay, the season came to an end Monday, Sept. 6. When one door closes, another opens, and salmon fishing will be available in the Sacramento, Klamath and Trinity rivers.

The 2010 influenza season officially begins in October, but cases of flu in some areas of the country have already been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The infection usually peaks in January, February and March and usually ends by May. It is impossible to predict ahead of time how bad the flu season might be, but as we learned with the H1N1 (swine flu) last year, it’s best to be prepared.

Marilyn Jean (Zonker) Kelsen