Many people have told me that this is a particularly sunny, dry winter for seattle. I know that’s supposed to seem like a good thing, but I’m finding that I really miss the seasons. In the last week, I’ve started to see these everywhere:
I don’t know what they’re called, but they grow in my backyard in Weston, and I used to pick them and put them in a little basket for my mom for Mother’s Day. To have these May flowers blooming in February, in a year with no snow, seems very odd to me. I saw the first crocuses three weeks ago. And these flowering trees at work kind of annoy me:
I’m not trying to be curmudgeonly about the weather (and really, who has the right to complain about 60s and sunny?), but it’s almost as if I still have the weather calendar from second grade stuck in my head, where March is windy (illustrated by a cloud blowing), April showers bring May flowers, etc. and the winters are icy and snowy. It’s nice to have it be so beautiful, but it feels like we didn’t do any work to get here… I kind of prefer New England where you’d still have two months of potential snow and a full month of thaw, but by the time it gets there it’s exciting to see the nice weather. The most I’ve had to do is scrape the iced-over dew off my car in the morning… it isn’t really the same.
The flowers are called Vinca, they’re in the Veronica family. There are many things that bloom early here, but the loveliness continues throughout the spring. I know what you mean about being “too early”, as I continue to be surprised at how early my garden starts waking up. We certainly don’t have the winters here that other places have. When I lived in Central Oregon for 9 months, I desperately missed Fall. They don’t have autumn down there, and I hated it. Autumn is wet and cold here, but I still love the colors, and the smell on the breeze. I think that winter is the only season we don’t get.
Your fish are great! I have two new ones in quarantine right now. And my new tank has started this very annoying cloudy thing. My other tank is always crystal clear, so it’s bugging me.
That’s funny – I posted just today about the cherry trees in Seattle too. It’s true that we don’t have seasons like you might have had before… but just you wait. We’ve had an amazingly nice mild winter this year – but I bet next year you’ll be praising the day when the flowers start blooming. And don’t think winter’s over yet; I remember a nasty snowstorm in Seattle a few years ago on the first day of spring! 🙂
hey–that looks like main campus!
😉
today is the first time I left the house sans jacket…