10 October 2010

Brandan harvested our sunflowers this week with Gibson's help. The sunflower heads are a good source for an all natural snack-- the kids love munching on the seeds. Some may call our garden neglected, but we prefer to call it "organic."

Brandan is always on the lookout for examples of the Fibonacci series in nature. Named for the Italian mathematician who discovered the series, the pattern is derived by starting with 1, adding 1+1 to get 2, then 1+2 to get 3, then 2+3 to get 5. The series continues by adding the 2 numbers just previous to get the next number of the series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. . .) The numbers in the Fibonacci series show up repeatedly in nature-- the number of sides on a banana or petals on a flower or spirals in a seashell or spirals on a head of cauliflower or spirals on a sunflower. The seeds on a sunflower head form spirals in two directions. Brandan counted the spirals on this head and found 34 spirals like the 2 green lines on the left and 55 spirals like the lines on the right-- both Fibonacci numbers. 

We made it to the cross country meet this week in plenty of time to enjoy a beautiful afternoon and a great race. Below is an actual photo of Sophie racing, not a phony staged photo like last week. Sophie thought she was going to pass out after the race, but she looked terrific as she approached the finish line. 

In our hurry to get to the meet on time, Abe grabbed only one tennis shoe. (Un?)Luckily for him, Helen had an extra pair of sparkly purple flip flops in the car. Here Abe is sitting on his feet while he watches the race.