The weather’s been wild across the country, including here in California. Rain, floods, mudslides, and now snow have caused a lot of damage. But also much joy, since we’ve been living for years with constant worry about drought and fires. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

February is our spring here in the Bay Area. After a rainy January, the sun came out and delivered our usual Valentine of flowering plum trees. I’m a Valentine’s baby, and during a birthday walk, I discovered a downed branch laden with blossoms, which another woman and I split to bring the ephemeral beauty into our homes. Such an unexpected gift along with the usual one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Already the blossoms have mostly given way to unfurling red and green leaves (the poison oak is unfurling at a pretty good clip too). But the daffodils are resplendent:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We had a dry spell for a couple of weeks, but thankfully, the rain started up again. Temperatures plummeted, and it began to snow, bringing blizzard warnings to LA and anxious ski resorts a break, at least until the snow closed major interstates. People have been skiing and sledding in Napa County, heart of the nearby wine country that’s been ravaged by fire and drought the last several years. From our living room window, we are agape at Mt. Tam, dusted with snow (some of it still there days later):<\/p>\n\n\n

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We have been growing webs between our toes, but the rain kindly stopped this afternoon so I could take a walk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then it began to hail. Oh, well. I am euphoric about the stuff coming down from the heavens, and here’s some euphorbia to celebrate:<\/p>\n\n\n

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The weather’s been wild across the country, including here in California. Rain, floods, mudslides, and now snow have caused a lot of damage. But also much joy, since we’ve been living for years with constant worry about drought and fires. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A break from fire and drought:","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2F8Ch-LP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2966,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965\/revisions\/2966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}