Presto, Change-o!

I don't know how it is where you are, but here the seasons change on a dime. One day the deciduous trees are bare. A day or two later they sport buds. The next day the buds sprout into tiny leaves. And two days after that the leaves are full-grown. Like I said, it's a short growing season. If you're gonna do it, you gotta do it. That's why insects are born with everything they need to know genetically. If it was up to a parent to teach them everything, they'd be dead before they learned how to poop. And last week it was in the 30s at night. Now it's in the mid-40s. The daytime temps have jumped up by ten to fifteen degrees nearly overnight.

You can see why those of us in the more northerly climes of the Western Hemisphere are clinging to our every last moment of almost-summer just now. It is precious and the days are few. (Though we never did have winter this year, so I cannot lament a long, cold, wet time; it never came.)

By August 1 it will all start to change again. The leaves will curl in for their eventual demise and the mountaintops will don a dusting of snow. That chill will return to the air, and the lowering sun will cast a buttery glow to the backyard and emphasize itself at sunset. I always get a little misty on August 1, but that's okay. I get over it quickly because I LOVE Fall. Go Pac-10!! I love that crispness that seems to ride the breezes like an injection of instant excitement.

So for now, enjoy the hell out of your season--whichever one you are currently being treated to. I will look forward to grilling and hosting garden parties, going to the Farmers' Market and attending our weekly festivals. And I will bask in the brilliance of the sun directly overhead for a little while.

I just want to make sure than when August 1 rolls around and I see that first flash of white on the peaks I can look back on the summer and say I did everything I wanted to do--I lived it all! Cheers...