On the map of U.S weather on my computer, the town in Illinois
where I grew up is colored turquoise
… the fifth-coldest color in the lower 48 states. It represents
temperatures of between +20 and -10 degrees Fahrenheit, or at least
twelve degrees below freezing.
On the map of U.S weather on my computer, the town in Illinois where I grew up is colored turquoise … the fifth-coldest color in the lower 48 states. It represents temperatures of between +20 and -10 degrees Fahrenheit, or at least twelve degrees below freezing.
You could store popsicles outside.
By contrast, on the same map, central California is a nice bright yellow, much like the color of the daffodils that will soon be blooming in my front yard. As I write, the buds are swollen and almost ready to unfurl. By tomorrow we should have flowers.
Not that winter in Northern California is free of inconvenience.
Three days last week, leaving the house before 4:00 am to go to work, I had to scrape ice from my windshield. Last year, my husband made me an official plastic ice scraper which I put in a safe place and forgot when it warmed up last spring. After fishing around for awhile I finally settled on my Costco card as a scraping device.
Before that, we were pounded by rain. I love listening to rain at night and know we need it to replenish our aquifer. A winter when the hills don’t turn green means the following summer will be dangerously dry.
But when you add rain to our fertile, clay-rich soils, you get some amazing mud. It sticks to the soles of work boots and eventually, once dry, falls out in a messy pattern of miniature adobe bricks.
And of course when you add rain to freeways full of people in a hurry, you create danger. Fortunately so far this season I’ve escaped any hair-raising episodes.
Of course, the part of Illinois where I grew up isn’t really turquoise. Even though it rained there too a few days ago, it’s not even green.
It’s gray. The sky is gray and the ground is gray. The leafless trees are darker gray and the straight, narrow country roads are the darkest gray of all. Unlike here, it’s flat as far as you can see. No hills relieve the monotony. It’s great country for growing corn, soybeans and hogs, but for now the Illinois earth appears asleep.
Any bulbs in the ground there are still huddled well below the surface of the earth. If I remember right, it was usually a lot closer to Easter before they would appear.
I live in California now because of a combination of luck and circumstance. I can’t take any credit for a wise choice, but I am smart enough to know when I’m lucky.
So far this year, we are especially lucky. We have been spared deadly landslides (again, so far … who knows what the next storm will bring), and the rain probably means we’ll be spared drought.
Our camellia bush has been blooming wildly for several weeks, and in our neighborhood there are roses that bloom almost all year round.
I don’t deserve to live in the Garden of Eden, but sometimes I feel that I do.
