Earthquake Weather

This evening The National Weather Service had the depressing statistic that only twelve times since 1849 has no rain fallen in Sacramento in the month of May.  I think that when June rolls around, that number will have increased to thirteen.  The weather has been unseasonably hot and dry with winds gusting up every afternoon.  The hills are already turning their summer brown -- spring rolled through so fast that the flowers scarcely know what to do.  The petals turn brown at the edges even as the buds are opening.

This afternoon, coming home, the sky was strangely hazy.  It was almost as though smoke was blowing in from a nearby fire.  But there was no smell of burning, so I assume that it was just dust kicked up by the wind.  Still, it felt very strange.  We used to describe days like this as "earthquake weather".  Of course I always knew that weather has no connection to earthquakes, but these eerie yellow days put me of a mind that something very big and brooding is waiting to happen. You heard it here first.





Every evening I'm going out to do some weeding.  I'm trying to get as many of them up before they go to seed;  it's a losing battle, but I'm filling the blue cart every evening before going in.  I feel a bit like the little ant trying to move a mountain, but I'm making steady (although slow) progress.