of Autumn, apples, and urban myths

Kids are way better than scientists and inventors when it comes to observing new facts about the world. Move over, Isaac Newton and Steve Jobs, it's my turn to discover something! My 5-year-old son, Andy, has come up with his own theory about Autumn:

"Mum, it's Autumn now! That's when the fruit fall from the trees! And then the birds eat them!"

"Well, yes, I guess that's right, although normally it's the leaves... "

So now I have an image in my mind of fruit falling from the trees all at once, like Newton with his apple. Must have been Autumn when he discovered the Universal Law of Gravity.

(Did you know, by the way, that Isaac Newton was an unpleasant man, constantly fighting with his colleagues and seeking to discredit them? Something I discovered from one of my son's science books the other day.)

(And he wasn't really hit on the head by an apple, although it's possible he did discover the law of gravitation in an orchard. And no, it wasn't an apple that Adam and Eve ate either.)

They do say that more people are killed by falling coconuts than by sharks.* Might be a good idea to stay out from under the trees right about now. Unless you're in the Northern hemisphere, of course, in which case it's Spring, the season for eating lemony flowers** - or so says my son.

* This, of course, is probably another urban myth.
** That is, flowers from the lemon clover.

image is by HikingArtist.com at flickr