Until the Wind Changes

Almost as if someone flipped a switch, the trees are suddenly changing colors and sloughing off their leaves like a raggy old coat.  The chipmunks in our back yard are running back and forth between our two old chestnuts and their hole by an old stone wall, their mouths crammed with the big shiny nuts as they disappear, tails twirling, into their hidey-hole. And for the first time in half a year, a strong wind suddenly kicked up from the southwest, pounding against the stone chimney on our...