Early Taste of Springtime. At least, in my house.

Springtime in the San Fernando Valley can be elusive. I like to describe our weather like this: on a normal year, we have 6 months of hellishly hot weather, followed by three months of smoky, hellishly hot weather (thank you, wildfires,) followed by a month of extremely windy, hellishly hot weather, followed by a month and a half of overcast, surprisingly chilly days. If it's an El Nino year, make that a month and a half of flash floods. Spring, then, is a dreamy blink of an eye that lasts as long as it takes the blooms of the Jacaranda to appear and then drop in a rain of purple flowers.

I love Springtime and always try to prolong it's visit here by trying to grow things year round in my kitchen garden window. Most of the year is a failure for everything except basil, my aloe, and a few other things that seem to thrive in the heat. This year, that included a little pot of bell peppers I grew from seed. I don't know if it was the pot, or the soil, or the seeds, but none of them got bigger than a golf ball.

The El Nino rains also brought my usually brown and dry back patio to life: lavendar, nasturtium and Oxalis Shamrocks are growing like weeds. Which two of them are. But still. Nothing is blooming yet, it's still too early. At Imbolc I brought in some clippings to Spring the joint up a bit.

What a change it made to my mood, to be surrounded by lovely green things. Happy Springtime to you, whenever it gets there!