• Plan holiday travel: Booking activity heats up after Labor Day. For the best Thanksgiving deals, fly out the Monday or Tuesday before or on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 26). Return the day after Thanksgiving, or wait until Monday or later.

• Eat safer while wasting less: September is Food Safety Education Month. Keep up-to-date on recalls (FoodSafety.gov/recalls). Get questions answered by e-mail (mphotline.fsis@usda.gov) or phone (888-674-6854). The new FoodKeeper app, currently available for Android and Apple devices, has storage advice for more than 400 foods and beverages.

• Go beyond McIntosh and Delicious: International Eat an Apple Day is Saturday, September 19. Look up the different varieties—and recipes, too—at USApple.org/PDF/USApple_VarietyGuide.pdf.

• Shop the sales: Look for bargains on bicycles, outdoor furniture, nursery stock (perennials, shrubs and trees) and preseason ski packages/lift tickets for some resorts. Cars: Prices may drop further later in the year, but selection will be limited.

• Gaze at the moon: The full moon may look especially big on “Super-Moon Sunday” (September 27) because of its proximity to Earth. Also occurring on the 27th: A lunar eclipse, when the full moon “disappears” into Earth’s shadow.

• Celebrate the harvest: Sonoma Wine Country Weekend, Sonoma County, California (September 4–6)…Hatch Valley Chile Festival, Hatch, New Mexico (5–6)…Midwest Wild Harvest Festival, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin (11–13)…Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival, Stahlstown, Pennsylvania (19–20)…Shenandoah Valley Apple Harvest Festival, Winchester, Virginia (19–20)…Hudson Valley Garlic Festival, Saugerties, New York (26–27).

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