The calendar says one thing; the weather says another. Bottom line: autumn is now a “myth only” here on the East Coast. Record high temps and scant rainfall have made a mecca out of the Eastern U.S for those who thought us a grey-rain-soaked part of the country. What’s next? Will those Californians that have taken over Colorado soon move Eastward? Gads! The thought is enough to make me cringe in my bed. Mother Nature is being particularly cruel and not waving her magic wand at all. Dry, hot, and sticky would just about sum up our weather of late.

Unlike most folks in Colorado, we don’t have an in-ground sprinkler system here in NJ. Nor do any of our neighbors. They rely on the stuff that falls from the sky called rain to water their lawns. Since moving here one year and a half ago, we’ve only pulled out our hose with attached watering device only a handful of times. Right now our grass is crispy. I think that might be okay since it’s at the end of its life cycle for the year. But then again, maybe not.

The leaves are changing but not in the same exuberant way that they did last year. They turn color, then drop off. Poor things. My neighbor came home the day after last to find Mr. Bear lying smack-dab in the middle of her driveway, panting like a giant, black dog. She felt so sorry for him that she told her husband she wanted to buy a kiddie pool and fill it up with water so he could slake his thirst. Her husband didn’t agree. He visited our yard too that day, but the only reason I know this was by finding a large pile of poo that was decidedly not from my dogs. Sigh. Who says bears do it in the woods? This bear prefers my grass.

I think we might be in for some cooler days and maybe even some rain this week. One thing I know is that you can’t predict or change the weather. If I could, I surely would. Maybe I have jinxed the whole weather system by moving East last year. I certainly hope not. I don’t really buy into the blaming all our weather woes on global warming either. We’ve only begun to measure the weather since we could, over the past few centuries or so. How do we know what transpired before? We don’t; not really. Anyway, global warming is too deep a subject for me tonight, and I didn’t really mean to jump off that particular cliff tonight.

We did some mushroom foray-ing today which was great fun. More to follow!