It feels like November...

With the leaves rustling and my neighbor's wind chimes chiming, it seemed a lot like fall yesterday. The cool breeze even smelled like the cold autumn days looming huge in my future. When I closed my eyes I felt convinced that summer was indeed over. Even with my eyes open I was beginning to see the first, subtle signs of autumn. My yard was littered with dried leaves, although few and far between. Far off in the distance(rather, half a block away) a tree was already losing its leaves, turning the traditional autumn shades of orange, yellow and red. Soon winter birds would be arriving and before we'll know it snow will be piling up on roofs, on sidewalks, on cars and just about everywhere.

That was just a poetic take on the frigid weather we have been seeing a lot this summer in Chicago. Yesterday it was barely sixty-five degrees. Today the sun is out making it a bit more bearable.
 My namesake Indian Berry bush("Amelanchier, also known as shadbush, serviceberry, sarvisberry, juneberry, Saskatoon, shadblow, shadwood, sugarplum, and wild-plum" from Wikipedia) is already dropping leaves. Thankfully we have many jars of jam from its berries to carry us through winter. This spring the birds didn't eat all of them because a robin nesting in my yard chased everybody (everybird?) away. And our apple tree is dropping leaves too.

Thanks for reading. I'll tell you when it's over 80 degrees like it should be...