Indian Summer

It's been hot and sunny these past few days - today it was in the 80's - a sky so blue it looked like August in Spain.

While I love it, I'm still worried about the warming trend in the climate. Whether or not you think it's caused or made worse by pollution, you can't deny that the polar ice is melting and the weather is becoming more chaotic. With tropical storm Beta forming in the Caribbean, it's time to wonder what the next few years will be like in areas prone to storms and hurricanes.

But today all that seemed far away as we sat outside all day, wasps and butterflies acting slightly bemused, as if they couldn't get over the hot weather either, and dogs lying panting in the shade. We had drinks with friends at 5 pm, sitting outside the pony club, the kids in tee-shirts, the ponies happily grazing in the nearby pasture. My husband gave a polo clinic at my daughter's pony club today and the kids had a great time. The ponies had never seen polo sticks, but they were happy to learn a new game (ponies get bored too!) and everyone had fun and stayed much later than planned. And as we were sitting there after the game, the sun making the dust sparkle in the air and the autumn leaves falling slowly all around us like a colorful ballet, we remarked that the best thing about an Indian summer is its unexpectedness. Last week, when the rain came down in gusts and the hail rattled our windows, we couldn't predict that today we'd be sitting in our short-sleeves, watching the wasps get drunk on hard cider.