The 18th

This is my late mother's birthday. A nice warm day, and I went in to Newberry early to walk a German Shepherd at Newberry County Animal Care and Control. Patti, well, she was more than overjoyed to see me. She was leaping around and trying to kiss me and jumping up. It took at least a couple minutes to get the leash on her, and AWAY we went. She has tons of stored up energy. She needs work, and if I could have run, I'd have worn some energy out.
On the early morning walk, I was looking at trees, and yes, I CAN tell it's fall. It SMELLS like fall. The Sweet Gum trees are changing color, either due to the season, the extreme dryness or both. Most oak trees have not any color showing. Some of the Winged Elm have dropped leaves and have yellow leaves also. The Sugar Maples I talked about earlier still show green. A very occasional Red Maple leaf is red. Some of the grasses that my grandmother used to call "broom straw" has turned brown.
The weather forecast is calling for rain, and I hope we get some. I hope the entire Southeast gets some substantial rain, as the drought is having profound shortages of water in many areas. Mechanics Creek is still flowing as of this morning. I have yet to see it flow much, but it has been that dry. Sandy Run Creek has run dry.
There is rain in Georgia, and I hope I get home and walk Jolene before it gets here. I don't like walking in the rain that much, and I can use an umbrella and Jolene doesn not get to.