Ah, Winter Weather

The time change happens, your sense of daybreak gets messed up, and what looks like six in the morning turns out to be nine ... whoops, heavy Tule fog has really thrown off your day.

By the time you read the news and the comics, and drink your tea, feed the dogs, stoke the fire, put the jammies in the hamper and get dressed, it's nearly eleven o' clock and time to be thinking about what you're having for lunch and cooking for the midday meal.

A quick snack to break your nightly fast, a finger-numbing rummage through the freezer for some chicken filets that have mysteriously migrated to the bottom of the storage. You look at your watch and realize that you have almost five hours of daylight left to weed the winter garden, rake leaves into the street, go to the store for bread, stop at the Post Office, pick up the grand-daughter at school, get out to the yard to clean up dog poop, and take the recyclables down to the City Recycle Center.

Bam! It's dark, midday meal is done, the fog has come back up again, and the comfy pajamas seem like an oasis in a chilly desert night.

A warm laptop computer. A story you got to thinking about when you were supposed to be praying at church last Sunday. Thick, cushiony socks.

The glass of wine, and a tiny plate of summer sausage and walnuts.

Another winter tale begins.

Winter

Abutilon at Sunrise

Ah, sunrise. How sweetly the sun gives the flower its first kiss of the day...

Guess again. If the sun is kissy at all, it's around three in the afternoon. Until then, the world is gray and white, thickly shrouded in fog, almost colorless.

Tomorrow is the first day of winter, they say, but I've had enough of winter weather already. The heavy fog traps the particulate matter in the air, and so the Valley, from top to bottom, is under a government "No Burn Day" restriction. That means, to keep warm, we have to run the forced-air furnace.

That means: we don't keep warm. The woodstove would heat the mass of the house; the floor and walls would be warm. The furnace heats only the air, and thus everything we touch is cold.

We need the jet stream to swing south and bring us some nice Gulf of Alaska winds with a spin-in of southern moisture, blow some of this junk out of the Valley, drench the air and get the sooty smog to drop out of the sky.

Also, our turnips need a rain.

Close to Hibernation

Last night I dreamt of a river, deep and green like the ocean. I had to swim along in it, let it carry me to a safe place. I knew it would, so I was unconcerned; and I was bundled in layers of clothing to protect me from the water's cold. 

I woke to gray haze again, and really wanted to be able to go back to sleep, back to my dream-river, and not wake up until the weather changes.

I don't actually hate the fog; in the fall I feel a sense of anticipation at the first wisps drifting along the fields and streets. In the fall, fog reminds me that Christmas is coming, and how beautifully the decorative lights will be enhanced by the white stuff in the air. Fog blunts the coldest weeks in January, keeping plants from freezing, and I welcome it for those few dangerously cold nights.

And there can be no doubt that on the foggiest days, when the gray mass parts suddenly and reveals the sky, the wonder of just what an exquisite color of blue exists in the world can just about break your heart open.

Today I watched a small crowd of yellow-rumped warblers cavorting in my neighbor's cherry tree. I know what they're doing -- the same thing the white-crowned sparrows are doing as they whistle their territorial call, the same thing the regular sparrows are doing as they quarrel nastily in the shrubs, the same thing the crows are doing, bringing their ladies little twigs and bits to eat, the same thing the hawks are doing, circling in the sky above the wad of gray beneath. It's time for happy hootchie-cootch, they say, and they're out there dancing and giving each other the eye.

Birds see differently than people do. People are still hunched up, bundled up, fed up, and pretty much consider that this much foggy weather has long outlived its usefulness.

As soon as my comforter is out of the dryer, I'm going to wrap it around me and crawl back into bed. I want to find my green river again and let it carry me into a land with sunshine.

The Murk-ury Rises

Spring is here. The temperatures are rising into the high fifties or low sixties by late afternoon; the skunks and possums and raccoons are committing suicide in droves on the roads; and the red-tailed hawks are doing mating dances in the sky.

Yesterday it was sunny all day, simply gorgeous. Bernie and I took our cars to a little wood lot up the road and loaded them with 1/4 cord of firewood, which will last us until next fall at least. In spite of the lovely day, I was eeping around like a poisoned cockroach, so sore from my exciting horseback ride, and feeling like I was 90 years old. I caved in towards evening and swallowed a naproxen sodium pain-reliever, and a dose of valerian before I went to bed.

When I awoke this morning (not intending to be awake, I just opened my eyes) I saw the thickest fog yet this winter season. I was so astounded by it that I couldn't go back to sleep. I rolled out of bed, noting gratefully that all the soreness and weariness were gone, grabbed my camera, and went out the back door to take this photo.

My mother used to quote me the weather adage: "As the day lengthens, the winter strengthens." Meaning that just because the days were getting longer again didn't mean the weather was going to be nicer just yet. That's one to remember, because it's always true. This year I could say, as The Weather Channel predicts higher temps for us in the afternoons, "As the mercury rises, the murk also rises."

I hope the murk gets over itself soon.

P.S. Hooray for valerian and what it does for sore muscles!

Under the Fog Monster's Butt

Oh, so dim.

Above the wad of fog that squats in the Central Valley, the sun is shining. In the foothills, people are slathering aloe vera gel on their sunburns, even while grinning at their own discomfort.

People are skiing in the sun, sweating under their down vests in the Sierras, wearing sunglasses to shield their eyes from the glare.

In the Bay Area, diners are sitting outside restaurants, with light sweaters over their shoulders, supping on small sandwiches and sweet, fruity California wines.

But here, from dawn until dusk, the sky is a uniform gray. In spite of knowing that in less than a month, the almond orchards will be beginning their bloom, the gray, low ceiling of the fog weighs on me. We're pretty much out of wood, so the furnace runs at night if the house gets below 64 degrees. During the day, we're setting the temperature at 68.

Crazy! During the sunny times of the year, 68 degrees would figure in my vocabulary as in "Oh, Lord, it's 68 degrees already at 8:00 in the morning! No wonder I'm sweating already! Turn on the fans!"

Today the house was 68, and I was freezing. My hands and feet felt so cold that they hurt, and I could not bear to touch myself, not even to scratch an itch on my bare skin. I put on gloves and a warm jacket, and started walking. Howie was quite agreeable to keep up a gentle jog as I walked as fast as I could. With the damp dark sky above, I prayed a Rosary while I walked, for someone I know who needs prayers very, very much, trying to elevate my mind out of being grumpy and cold.

Howie and I walked through an almond orchard, and my prayer stopped along with my footsteps, for a few moments of thankfulness. There, on the branch of a tree, were buds -- and on each one, pinpoints of white were peeking.

The fog will not last forever.