The most notable thing in season right now is the flu.

Pandemic pandemonium has set in, and many people are reaching for the antibacterials. Fight the urge: hand washing will do, too, and is chemical-free.

For those seeking natural relief, there is another potent potion to fight the flu. It’s a local, native and delicious decoction made from a plant found on-Island.

You are seeing stars — and even weirder, I can confirm that the green and red flashes of light in the heavens are not figments of your imagination!

It is not that you bumped your head, nor do you need glasses. And you are not hallucinating traffic lights in the night sky. This time of year, it is common to observe a light that appears to flicker in color, twinkling red and green low in the northeast sky.

You won’t have this mushroom to kick around anymore.

Earthstars, which are in the puffball family of mushrooms, are nature’s kickballs. Very few of us can resist the urge to take a boot to these and other bulbous puffballs. As fall progresses, the sporous spheres are nearing the end of their reproductive lifecycle, although you can still see their dried, crusty remains through the winter.

I was planning its demise all week and thinking about whom to blame. Would it be Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with a wrench, Professor Plum in the kitchen with a candlestick, or maybe Mrs. Peacock in the study with a lead pipe?

None of those would have been the correct answer. Had I gone through with the murder, the one to blame would have been the director in the field with a saw.

Benito Mussolini had this less-than-conciliatory policy: “Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts.”

Ouch. Someone needs to lighten up.

“How dry I am, how dry I am

Nobody knows how dry I am”

(No hiccup necessary)

This ditty could be the theme song of dusty miller, a plant that grows in the desiccated dunes of the seashore. As a dune dweller, dusty miller has had to adapt or perish.