We love the El Nino winters here in the NW. All the time the rest of the country has been under siege with blizzards and it's snowing in Florida, up here in Washington and Oregon it's been a fabulous year so far.
I'm speaking of the weather, of course.
(But the most recent unemployment numbers actually went down here for the first time in a long time, so there is room for a very small and guarded celebration)
If you have never lived in Washington you can't really appreciate how dreary the winters are. My husband and I (and Bungee) live on the beach. We have 3 rain forests withing 85 miles. It's gray. The ocean is gray, the sky is gray the ocean is gray. The only plants are sea grass, pussy willows and myrtle. The wind blows here. You don't know wind until you have had 5 days with 80mph winds in one week. Believe me, we earn our summers!
Last year we had no spring. Not much summer, either. I think it was above 75 out here maybe twice. There isn't much of a change of seasons. The grass gets a bit greener is all.
We drive into Olympia a lot. We lived there for many years and it's the closest town with a bookstore. It's 80 miles one way. Around May I notice this overwhelming smell there that I didn't notice when we lived there.
Flowers. We don't have those here.
And it's so green. It's like Ireland green now. The verdant splendor that is the Evergreen State.
So, don't hate us because it's been around 50 degrees all this year so far. Between 47 and 57 day after day. It's rained quite a bit, but we have had lots of sun in January and February and that's unheard of here.
When the first pink flowered trees start blooming it almost hurts to see
it.
Now the daffodils have bloomed. We grow lots of bulbs in the NW. Not we personally, you know - the "royal" we.
And the camellias
To an artist like myself it looks like this -
Even Bungee is affected. Here he is in the NW winter
To this-
It's almost tulip festival time in the Skagit valley. Maybe the tulips will actually be blooming for it this time.
So, while we feel for you guys in Atlanta where it snowed yesterday (we do, really), we are basking in the spring that came a month early.
Now let's just hope it doesn't snow here next week. It could. It's only March, after all. But now we are just enjoying the sun.