Almost Summer for a Day

 

 

 

 

What can compare to an almost-summer day-- a warm breeze, the shadows and the light through the leaves, iris flowers and peonies blooming!

So, open the windows, get out the summer chairs, put on the shorts and T-shirts. This is the kind of day we wait for all winter.

And even if the winter just past was not so bad as winters go, it was still dark and cold, still ice on the sidewalks and there were days of subzero wind chills--that was brutal. What will next winter bring?

No, no, don't think about that now.  Winter will come soon enough.  Now, let's fill our heads with summer things. Laundry drying in the breeze.  The sound of push reel mowers that almost sound like rain.  

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer in Chicago.  June 1 marks the official start of meteorological summer, and astronomical summer begins with the solstice on June 21. 

June 1 is also the beginning of hurricane season.  NOAA predicts a near-normal season with El Nino and warm Atlantic waters setting the stage.  There is a probability of 12-17 named storms,  and 1-4 major hurricanes.  You can read more, here.

But today,  Memorial Day,  is more than a holiday of grilling and mattress sales and no mail delivery. There are people working today.  There is remembrance of wars past, and those who died.  Remember them. Honor them, today.  

https://twitter.com/NOAA/status/166176686980617345?s=20