Rain

I went out and bought an umbrella yesterday. I haven't owned one since I was about six. It's pretty unusual for us to get rain here, but it has been raining A LOT lately. Steve hasn't had to water the lawn in weeks. This could be that global warming everyone's been talking about. By now we should be getting snow, not rain.

The leaves are completely gone from one of our trees, but not the other. We don't get really pretty leaves here - they just turn yellow and fall off with a minimum of fuss.

I am very partial to our trees. They are nicest in the middle of summer and the middle of winter. I love to see them covered with green leaves, but I'm also partial to the way snow collects on them in winter. They don't get covered with a blanket of wet snow like always happens back home. Our trees slowly accumulate tiny ice crystals and you can see every tiny twig. By December or so they look like they are covered in white eyelashes. Against the ice on the roads, the snow on the rooftops and the ice fog rolling in, it would make a beautiful painting in shades of white.