Roosevelt's Retreat at Elkhorn Ranch in North Dakota  An oil boom and its associated development threaten the Elkhorn Ranch, where Theodore Roosevelt developed his conservation ethic by Reed Karaim | From Preservation | Oct. 1, 2013 http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2013/fall/roosevelts-retreat-at-elkhorn-ranch.html 

Founder's Farm  James Monroe's Historic Oak Hill Estate by Marion Laffey Fox Preservation | Oct. 1, 2013  The gardens surrounding Oak Hill include mature trees planted by President Monroe as well as landscaping added by successive owners. The most recent iteration brought modern touches and less regimented structure.  Credit: Photo by Gordon Beall  When President James Monroe built Oak Hill in the early 1800s, it was a full day’s carriage ride from Washington, D.C., a distance now made metaphorically longer by the vast difference between northern Virginia’s scenic countryside and D.C.’s limestone-and­ marble pomp.  Here in Aldie, Va., roughly 40 miles from the nation’s capital, the scenic countryside of northern Virginia’s Piedmont region continues to draw Washington powerbrokers, who choose it as a favored weekend retreat of mountain vistas, historic towns, vineyards, and family farms.  Stretching out across 1,200 fertile acres, Oak Hill today is one of the only privately owned early presidential residences in the country.  http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2013/fall/founders-farm-james.html

History of sandwiches 

1st Century B.C. -The first recorded sandwich was by the famous rabbi, Hillel the Elder, who lived during the 1^st century B.C.  He started the Passover custom of sandwiching a mixture of chopped nuts, apples, spices, and wine between two matzohs to eat with bitter herbs.
6th to 16th Century - During the Middle Ages, thick blocks of coarse stale bread called trenchers were used in place of plates.  Meats and other foods were piled on top of the bread to be eaten with their fingers and sometimes with the aid of knives.
16th and 17 Century - In Mark Morton's well researched 2004 article Bread and Meat for God's Sake, he wrote:  "What, then, were sandwiches called before they were sandwiches?  After combing through hundreds of texts, mostly plays, that were written long before the Earl of Sandwich was even born, a possible (through somewhat prosaic) answer emerges. The sandwich appears to have been simply known as "bread and meat" or "bread and cheese."
1762 - The first written record of the word "sandwich" appeared in Edward Gibbons (1737-1794), English author, scholar, and historian, journal on November 24, 1762.  Gibbon recorded his surprise at seeing a score or two of the noblest and wealthiest in the land, seated in a noisy coffee-room, at little tables covered by small napkins, supping off cold meat or sandwiches, and finishing with strong punch and confused politics.
1762 - It is also said that the cooks at London’s Beef Steak Club, a gentlemen's gaming club held at the Shakespeare Tavern, invented the first sandwich.  Each member could also invite a friend. 
John Montague (1718-1792), the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, was a hardened gambler and usually gambled for hours at a time at this restaurant, sometimes refusing to get up even for meals.  It is said that ordered his valet to bring him meat tucked between two pieces of bread.  Because Montague also happened to be the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, others began to order "the same as Sandwich!"  The original sandwich was, in fact, a piece of salt beef between two slices of toasted bread.
1840 - The sandwich was introduced to America by Englishwoman Elizabeth Leslie (1787-1858).  Link to histories of sandwiches such as Beef on Weck, Cuban and Dagwood at:  http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SandwichHistory.htm 

Alice Munro has been awarded the Nobel prize in literature, thus becoming its 13th female recipient.  It's a thrilling honour for a major writer:  Munro has long been recognised in North America and the UK, but the Nobel will draw international attention, not only to women's writing and Canadian writing, but to the short story, Munro's chosen métier and one often overlooked.  Canadians are discouraged from bragging – see the Munro story, Who Do You Think You Are? – so will probably spend much of her time hiding in the figurative tool shed.  We're all slightly furtive, we writers; especially we Canadian writers, and even more especially we Canadian female writers of an earlier generation.  "Art is what you can get away with," said Canadian Marshall McLuhan, and I invite the reader to count how many of the murderers in Munro's stories are ever caught.  (Answer: none.)  Munro understands the undercover heist that is fiction writing, as well as its pleasures and fears:  how delicious to have done it, but what if you get found out?  Back in the 1950s and 60s, when Munro began, there was a feeling that not only female writers but Canadians were thought to be both trespassing and transgressing.  Munro found herself referred to as "some housewife", and was told that her subject matter, being too "domestic", was boring.  A male writer told her she wrote good stories, but he wouldn't want to sleep with her.  "Nobody invited him," said Munro tartly.  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/10/alice-munro-nobel-literature-prize-margaret-atwood 

October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar.  There are 78 days remaining until the end of the year. 

1656 – Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The marriage of church-and-state in Puritanism makes them regard the Quakers as spiritually apostate and politically subversive. 

1884 – The American inventor, George Eastman, receives a U.S. Government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film.

1888 – Louis Le Prince films first motion picture: Roundhay Garden Scene.

1926 – The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is first published.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_14 

It is Thanksgiving Day in Canada, always celebrated on the second Monday in October. 

THIS AND THAT

Thousands of bees were removed from a house in Cocoa Beach, FL on Oct. 12, 2013.  The bees, which are important to nature, will be moved to a safer location.

Madonna is reported to have texted nonstop during the New York Film Festival screening of 12 Years A Slave.  'It’s for business…enslaver!,' replied Madonna to requests to cease texting.  Tim League, the founder of the Alamo Drafthouse, took note of Madonna's breach in etiquette and took to Twitter to make the announcement:  'Until she apologizes to movie fans, Madonna is banned from watching movies @drafthouse.'