May is the most excellent month. We start May 1st with flowers as the blooms arrive. May grey started off the month. So cold and damp was it that we needed a fire two nights in a row to keep warm. We often light a fire outside for May Day but this year it was too cold and gloomy even for the cats to go out. They lounged around the house all day and night.
That first week was followed up by high heat the following week with temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s. We drove up to Santa Ynez and were surprised to find it was 101 degrees outside. It is lovely up there though. We settled in at a winery with our picnic lunch but we were able to tuck into the wine cave patio where it was much cooler than the ambient temperature. I had expected to see a lot of flowers blooming in the hills, but it seems they had all died back. There was just the mustard plants still blooming. Already the hills are turning more brown than green. We didn’t spot many birds or animals while there. I am sure they were reposing in this heat.
The following morning I woke up to the most beautiful sky filled with wispy white cirrocumulus clouds, like a stray tropical storm was somewhere off the coast but couldn’t make it to shore. May is the month for beautiful mornings. I love seeing the first light of the sun at 5:30 am. It makes me jump out of bed to greet it. I feel it is tragic when the sky clouds over with the offshore winds bringing the cool ocean air to meet the warm air inland. The coastal eddy swirls around it’s mist and reaches it’s long cold fingers to us. Some say it is our natural air conditioning. Indeed, too many high temperature days don’t bode well for the summer heat and fall fires.
We only had 6.5 inches of rain for our whole rain season so far. If we are lucky, maybe a stray hurricane off the west coast of Mexico will bring us a summer storm. There is nothing better.
Reflections Outside My Window 