This is November?

My birthday is in just a couple of days. It is typically a dreary gray day. Sometimes there is sunshine, sometimes mild temperatures, but usually it is gray and cold. My backyard this year is telling a different story.

Here are some of the neat surprises from my backyard stroll this afternoon. I noticed a begonia and an azalea wildly blooming at my mother's just yesterday, so perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised.

Compare the above to what we more typically see in November here:

I realize that 'Global Warming' is a misnomer, but these things are unusual for November in our neck of the woods (Southern Indiana.) I do worry about the phenomenon of global warming, whether it is misnamed or not...but for today I am enjoying the nicer, pretty side effects.