I am so thankful that a week and more of warm days has been bestowed on us here at the end of Summer. You can tell I love this season best, if you just look at all the posts over the years that have summer in the title. I am always searching my mind and and heart to find a way to describe what happens to me, when in the final weeks we often get the best of the season — the earth has warmed up, and for some reason the marine breezes don’t move in every afternoon and force us to put on our sweaters.
I’ve been taking advantage of this unusual situation as much as possible, and sitting in the garden to read my book, or just to soak up the feeling of being comfortable. I’m noticing.
When I walked along the nearby creek this week, I remembered another benefit of living in this climate with no summer rain, often for four months or more. The plants that thrive or survive the yearly drought eventually come to the end of their productive season, and if there is heat at this time, it draws out the essences such that I am grabbed by the aromas as I walk past. There is a lot of jammy scent right now, from the Himalayan blackberries that grow wild all over northern California; the ones that never fully ripened back in high summer are now dehydrating on their stems.
And the ubiquitous fennel, also growing wild, though it’s also not native. These exude a licorice flavor into the air about now.
According to the forecast, we’ll have another ten days of highs in the 80’s and even 90’s. I think that is just the best way to transition into October.
As you are enjoying the aromatic end of the warm season, so I am experiencing the aromatic beginning of the warm season. For both of us, I think, this transitioning time of the year’s seasons is a good one 🙂 🙂
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I’m glad people still like to talk about the weather 😉
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Sweaters, you say? We’re still sweating away in these parts. On the other hand, it is a sign of the changing season that when I come home from work I don’t have to peel my sweat-soaked clothes off like a wet swimming suit!
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That does sound like a pleasing change!
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Golly, that is warm by our standards.
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Whatever the high temperature is, it can only last an hour at the most, what with the light being so slant. And the nights almost always go back into the 50’s. At this point it looks like the warmer pattern will continue through the middle of the month, and typically the latter half of October is 70’s and 40’s at the extremes.
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That sounds perfect.
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I love this time of the year with chilly nights followed by mostly sunny days. The garden is looking ragged but by now no one really cares. Small birds sit on thin stalks and eat seeds. I love watching them. My walking has had to be curtailed because of my hip/leg problem so any walks I take are more for noticing than exercise.
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When the flowers fade the birds still decorate our gardens ❤️
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A beautiful season indeed.
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You are so fortunate! I live in Scotland and it rains all year round. It’s been an average year so far. Wet with a few days of sun here and there.
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Do you have humidity? We had a very humid day yesterday and I felt miserable. Today was dry and great!
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No, it’s on the dry side of “comfortable.” If it were humid at this temperature, I think I’d just be lying on the floor somewhere, doing nothing.
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