Indian Summer

What marvelous weather we have  been having this week! Most mornings have started out chilly, but by the afternoons, the temperatures have been hitting the 70s F! That's quite warm for this time of year. It's November, after all!

We've already had several hard frosts, so I think this weather qualifies as "Indian Summer," which is that period of pretend summer that sometimes follows the first few frosts. I was curious as to the origins of the term, so I looked it up, and such interesting things I found!

Wikipedia offers us this:

"Late-19th-century Boston lexicographer Albert Matthews made an exhaustive search of early American literature in an attempt to discover who coined the expression The earliest reference he found dated from 1778, but from the context it was clearly already in widespread use.

Although the exact origins of the term are uncertain, it was perhaps so-called because it was first noted in regions inhabited by Native Americans (incorrectly labelled 'Indians'), or because the Native Americans first described it to Europeans, or it had been based on the warm and hazy conditions in autumn when native Americans hunted."

It turns out that other countries have their own terms for this tiny summer that happens after fall starts but before the winter begins: old women's summer, grandma's summer, gypsy summer, poorman's summer. (Gypsy summer really has a ring to it, doesn't it? So charming!)

This week, which followed the time change, has felt like a vacation of sorts. It had already started getting chilly. We were enjoying a truly blissful autumn, and from there we would be headed down the long slide into winter.

But then . . . we got a tiny reprieve, and sweet summer returned! I've been all over town and campus this week, and everywhere, everyone seems to be smiling. We are desperately happy in the way that people are when they know it won't last.

In further foliage news, the poplars at the Arboretum have been stunning this week. They appear bright yellow in good light and in bad. Golden, even. As I drive along Park Avenue, I can see them there. They practically shine.

And so I have spent some of my week playing with the poplars, taking pictures of them from every angle and in every light. On this morning, I was back again with my camera, and I walked through the grove of poplars, caught their shadows, made shapes of them against the light.

The lily pond at the Arboretum is one of my favorite places on Earth, and I visit it often. After the first hard frost or two, the poor water lilies were looking ragged, and last week, I noticed for the first time that they had been removed for the season. Farewell, beautiful lilies. Such fun we had together. Or . . . make that not farewell, but auf wiedersehen, for I know we shall meet again.

In the meantime, I am still enjoying the lily pond and its splendid reflective surface. On this beautiful, summer-like day, it was giving me a lovely view of the poplars in the background and all the little plants in front; and reflections of the golden dream that is November. . . .

The song to accompany this image is The Doors, with Indian Summer.