Hope and Change

It is a gray morning here, as if the sun wants to sleep in today.

Yesterday was a record high temperature, 95 degrees. We've had no rain for nearly a month, and almost nothing is green. Brown leaves are beginning to fall from dry trees. Fall colors, never that spectacular this far south in Alabama, may be even less so this year.

My son in Costa Rica is supposed to visit a "dry forest" today. I can walk a hundred yards and do the same.

We have a 70 percent chance of rain today. I hope the odds makers get it right.

The approaching Fall is still evident in spite of the temperature. My hummingbird feeders are frequented less. The little guys are off to winter further south. Through the window, I can see a cat squirrel on my lawn, carefully gathering straw and dried grass clippings to line her Winter nest. Cooler weather is on the way. The signs are there for the reading.

I await hope and change. I am optimistic that it won't be as big a let down as the political slogan.