Christ! It's started raining again here in the Inland Valley again!
The local TV Weathermen said this wave would miss us, and the Tahoe weatherpeople said the miniscule amount of precip would have trouble dropping any lower than Susanville...March is over...and yes, the almost miracle added to our paltry pack, but the measurements say we're at roughly 50% of "normal" now.
Mother Nature, get over it now, it's Baseball Season, OK?
The Not Quite March Miracle played hell with my fun. The False Spring had all the fruit trees blooming along with the daffodils and paperwhites here in the Inland Valley.
Around the corner from the Ancestral Digs there's a home on a corner lot, with a teensy-weensy circle driveway and mature landscaping. The little driveway makes an island with the sidewalk and curbs. There's three well trained trees on the island...two Flowering Plums and another fruit tree with white blossoms.
Ten days ago, those flowering plums burst into bloom with their lovely purple flowers. The branches weren't covered with blossoms, more like the sparse, artistic smattering of blooms in a Japanese painting. These were set off by the heavy lichen encrustation on the stout-ish limbs. Deeply textured bark with hospital green lichen colonies larger than apples breaking up the long dark branches. When I first noticed the show, I thought I've gotta get down here in the evening when the golden hour will make for some amazing photos...I'll bring my tripod and reflectors and make some awesome photos...
Cue Mother Nature...it started pouring rain the next morning, and didn't stop until every blossom on all three trees was stripped off unceremoniously and deposited right into the gutter. Life goes on...springtime is nothing if not ephemeral...
The rain will stop before the weekend, so I can move a clump of gladiolis, to make room for two rows of pea pods before putting in some more summer-y vegetables.
During Saturday's rain squalls, I watched bicycle racing LIVE from Belguim. The incredible Tour of Flanders really sparked-up my bicycle racing receptors...This weekend the Spring Classic, Paris-Roubaix will be LIVE on NBCSN (exVersus) at 6AM PDT. I may play a Fantasy Team for the one day classic.
This would be wholly three months early compared to years past...I may make a team for the Giro d'Italia, the first Grand Tour in late May/early June...
Spring is shaping up nicely...Formula One is still another 10 days away...Easter Sunday will be mostly quiet on racetracks around the world...thank God MotoGP kicks off it's season on Easter!
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I say, "Bring it on". We need the water, in any form. Snow is more bettah but hey, it's Spring time after all, and this is what it does.
ReplyDeleteRight now there's some snraining going on. And, yes, I'm afraid it has taken a toll on the fruit trees. Was there even time to pollinate? That's what I worry about in the cycle of life, or as you put it, "life goes on". It doesn't go on if certain plants are not pollinated or miss an optimal growing season.
Then again, Mother Nature works in mysterious ways. Some seeds are viable up to twenty years after their so called demise. Now, that's an interesting adaptation.