Juvenile

There was a squirrel playing in my mulberry tree. I watched him for a while, and noticed that several of the tree's leaves have turned yellow and withered. Autumn is poking at summer. So far it's just making little pokes, but it won't be long before Autumn grows aggressive. The oaks have turned the deep green of late summer, and have even begun to lose a few leaves. It's clear that midsummer's ripeness has passed, and that decay approaches.

Once summer begins to dry out, as it now has, the risk of fire grows. So far this year we've been free of brush fires, but the luck might not last. Winter and spring were so wet that the fields and forests are full of new chaparral, all of it just waiting for a spark. I don't like brush fires. They are so hard on the bushtits, for one thing.

(yes I wrote that just so I could say "bushtit." My sense of humor is very juvenile.)