The longest-running series of benefit concerts in America, Farm Aid grew out of a comment made by the Bob Dylan at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia. Suggesting it would be great if the musical community could help America’s struggling family farms as well, Dylan inspired Neil Young, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp to organise an event. The first Farm Aid took place two months later in Champaign, Illinois and raised $7 million. Two decades later, the concerts have raised more than $30 million and featured great American axe wielders such as Tom Petty, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Grateful Dead (by satellite in 1987) and, of course, the organizers.
The waning last quarter moon will pass just north of the bright star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus.
Like the Cure Salée, the festival held in the High Atlas town of Imilchil is all about livestock and finding a partner. The most famous example of 600-plus moussems, the event is a homecoming celebration for herders who have spent the summer taking advantage of grazing grounds. The cattle fair adds to the chaos created by souqs (markets) and nomadic campgrounds, which look as striking as the surrounding mountains.
Kitsch, possibly of the unintentional kind, comes out to play at the Cows’ Ball. More than 50 years old, the festival marks a winter homecoming; not of men, but of cattle, which return to the alpine Bohinj valley after a summer spent in green pastures. Daisy and friends are truly the belles of the rural ball, as they are decorated with wreaths and shown off on a parade. Accompanied by herders, cheesemakers, milkmaids and other dairy-farming types, they pass Lake Bohinj and, rising 130m above it, Govin Waterfall. The falls are only active after heavy rain, so hopefully there won’t be any spray to spoil the animals’ get-up.
The planet Mercury will pass close to the bright star Spica in Virgo. This is a particularly good apparition of Mercury for observers in the Southern Hemisphere, less so for northerners.
The sun crosses the celestial equator moving southward. Day and Night are of equal length. The sun rises due east and sets due west everywhere on Earth. This is the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox (Spring) in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Galway Oyster Festival is dedicated to Ostrea edulis, the European flat oyster. The local molluscs are left to grow for three years in the clean waters of Brandon Bay and Clarenbridge, blooming into a juicy delicacy. Tens of thousands of the slippery critters are consumed on the Guinness Oyster Trail, on which 30 pubs give out free trays of the seafood with pints of the dark stuff.
The moon passes just south of the dwarf planet Ceres in the constellation Libra.