Flood and Fire in the Garden (State)

As I mentioned yesterday, I went golfing despite the not so great weather here in Chicago. The course we played is next to The Botanical Gardens in Glencoe. In addition to all the cool trees and plants around the course, there were tons of Barn Swallows diving around eating flying bugs. Here's a very representative picture of what we saw, had it sat still long enough:




As you can see, it definitely has a tinge of blue or purple about it. As the course was awash in Purple Martin houses, we concluded that these were probably Purple Martins as well. Seems like maybe we were wrong.

Then I come across this picture of a Barn Swallow, which is what I thought they looked like originally. So now I'm all confused over what we saw.






If you recall from earlier writings, when I was in the Turks, Ken from NJ was the victim of a flood. My luggage was temporarily lost, but he had real problems. Then I go to Sarasota for a wedding and half of the state of Florida seemed to be on fire. While there, I heard about fires enveloping NJ as well! How can a state go from floods to ablaze in one month?!?! With the 17 year Cicada's coming, it's like biblical plagues.......all centered on New Jersey. Why am I considering a trip there again?