My mind works in mysterious ways, as is evident to those who read my columns.

I found something in the Farmers Almanac for 2019 that caught my eye, and made me understand astronomy in a way I never did in college.

“Let’s make a planet fruit salad,” the almanac read, “our solar system put into (delicious) perspective.”

Mercury was depicted as a pea, Venus a grape, Earth a cherry tomato, Mars a blueberry, Jupiter a watermelon, Saturn a grapefruit, Uranus an apple, Neptune a lime and Pluto a peppercorn.

Now I’ve seen, and probably made, displays of planets and the solar system. I’ve taken, and done well in, courses in astronomy and the like. But for some reason, I never grasped the size of Jupiter in relation to earth. A watermelon to a cherry tomato — this I can grasp.

The folks at Farmers’ Almanac sent me a copy of the famed publication, and I have to admit I am fascinated. The website www.farmersalmanac.com has a lot of information, and a place to order the publication for those of us who enjoy a physical copy of their reading material.

I quickly paged through the publication — stopping on the planetary fruit salad for a few moments — looking for the weather. Because who doesn’t want to know? Turns out, I didn’t want to know.

The seasonal weather map  for January through March for this region is in a mixed area on the map, with “biting cold, snowy; cold & white; and chilly, wintry mix” all listed around Pennsylvania.

And the summer 2019 is mixed, too, with “normal temps, stormy, and muggy, wet.”

Ugh.

So I went a bit further. “Philosofacts” caught my eye — “part philosophy, part fact.”

Intriguing. The “Thought of the Year” was listed as follows: “The greatest threat to the future is indifference.”

How apropos, especially with the election next week.

I am sharing this for a few reasons, the first of which is this: I am a nerd. I love little bits of trivia, or learning a new way of looking at things. The second is this: Books, magazines and newspapers are awesome.

I know I have told people before how much I appreciate reading, and encouraged them to pick up a book. But it’s a message that bears repeating.

In Smethport, the Hamlin Memorial Library has a new program called the “Give One Book, Get One Book” program. It’s a used book exchange. Monday was the first night.

“It got started because one of my board members is an elementary school teacher,” said library director Lori Rounsville. “The students love getting books, and the teachers love having books in their classrooms.”

The turnout for the first event of its kind at the library was better than expected.

“We had like 22 people show up,” Rounsville said. “We ended up with people bringing boxes of books and taking a bag.”

While the book exchange was an event, Rounsville said she’d be happy to keep it going all the time. “We have a roomful of books. People donate books to us all the time.”

She was pleased with the enthusiasm shown by the participants, too.

“We had one boy who walked into our book room and was amazed,” she said, adding several boys were thrilled with the number of choices there.

“We were quite pleased.”

As am I. Anything that encourages people to read has my vote. Perhaps I can get a book or two to read to my plants, Alistair and Kevin…

(Schellhammer is the Era’s associate editor. She can be reached at marcie@bradfordera.com)