April to May 5

For this April's last Friday 5, "April Showers Bring May..." Jan hosts and suggests, "With the old adage 'April showers bring May flowers,' let's look at the weather and vegetation in our home areas to see if any May Flowers will be blooming.

1. What spring flowers and plants do you see? Or will see sometime in the future?
Spectacular local spring specialties include the Carlsbad tulip fields and the Anza-Borrego desert in bloom.

2. What kinds of weather are you experiencing in April?
As much as I love hot weather in this coastal desert, that brings with it some interesting heat-dryness-humidity combinations, I've been enjoying our overcast, sometimes foggy mornings, frequently sunny afternoon, along with relatively cool rest of the days. "May Gray" and "June Gloom" probably will happen next, but occasionally neither does.

3. What are the stereotypical harbingers of spring in your area? How about where you grew up?
I love hearing the endless vireo songs! Just as during early spring everywhere, longer days, changing quality of ambient light, are pleasures, too. Spring means local tomatoes! We've been getting blackberries from Baja California since early December, but recently local strawberries have been showing up. Where I grew up, I particularly loved those occasional crocuses sprouting through melting corn snow slush, the surprise of warm sunshine, the sense spring truly was here, winter a fading dream.

4. What season do you like best in your home area?
All of them, but…summer wins the Blue Ribbon with its long, warm days, beckoning beaches, and overarching sweetness. I also like autumn, because that's when hot, dry, Santa Ana winds charged with positive ions that make some people crazy, give others (like me) a sense of intense well-being.

5. What is sprouting or blooming in your life? What do you wish for?
In my life I wish, long, hope for a real life again. Yesterday I enjoyed attending the vendor exhibit (please see pic, and I'm planning to blog about it soon) for our annual local Print Week. That gave me hope and inspiration, but I want and need so much more that only can be given as gifts of grace.