Weather. Or not.

Seems like we basically skipped most of spring and went straight to summer, at least the last few days.

It was in the upper 80s over the weekend, and it felt almost too hot inside -- and we haven't even had the swamp cooler or air conditioner serviced for the season yet. I worked in the garden on Sunday, and it was downright hot. Tony was doing some mowing and trimming, and we both kept Gatorade and water close at hand.

MUCH too early for this kind of weather.

It's back to something reasonable today -- in the 60s -- but we're soaring back into the 80s Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Odd to think that other parts of the country are still freezing. I put out tomatoes yesterday! (okay so it's early -- but a friend gave me six pots of very leggy, greenhouse-started beauties, and they needed to get into the ground).

I don't like it.

I love the garden part, don't get me wrong. But I can control my enthusiasm for the heat and very dry weather we've had. The grass is already browning, and it seems like we barely had the beauteous, Irish-green that characterizes spring in Northern California. The lilacs have already come and pretty much gone, and I didn't even get in a good sniff!

But I didn't get quite enough of sweatshirts and woodstove fires and bubbly stews and flannel sheets. I put on regular sheets Sunday, and while they are new ones in a nice 400 thread count, they aren't the snuggly comfort of flannel.

I'm still hoping for rain. This is rodeo week in Red Bluff, and every year we've been here has meant rain and cold for the parade on Saturday. Right now the forecast is 63 degrees with a 20 percent chance of rain.

But we're fast running out of time for this season. At mid-April, we have maybe six weeks of possible rain left, and that's generous. And then it's sun, sun, sun, sun, hot, hot, hot, hot, dry, dry, very dry, tinderbox dry, and alligator skin dry. Until sometime in October, maybe even November. *sigh*

I know, I know. Be where you are.

I do love where we live, really truly. I love the seasons, I love the mild winters, I love the rain. I love the sun, too, and both the green and the gold seasons. I can even take the heat, mostly, since it IS dry and not the awful humidity that I lived in most of my life.

But a little more balance would be nice.

Guess that's true of all of my life, hm...(as I face multiple deadlines this week and instead of writing stories, I'm writing this blog....)