Seasons in the South are so weird.
Summer, of course, is long and hot.
Then autumn slowly makes its way onto the scene, starting in October. The leaves blaze gorgeous color for a week or two, right around Thanksgiving; and then in December they fall and fall and fall—you look out the window and find it is positively raining leaves.
In January—as camellias bloom and azaleas bud and spring is already hot on autumn’s heels—we rake.
Or, at least, we’re supposed to rake.
At this time last year, I had over 30 bags of leaves set out for the city’s yard waste pick-up. Right now, I have none. It just keeps raining, and everything is too soggy to rake. On the occasional day we’ve had where the sky has actually been blue, it hasn’t lasted long enough for things to dry out enough so that we can rake. (I should also mention sweeping, as we have a thick carpet of pine needles on our driveway which cannot be swept up until it dries out.)
Perhaps this gloomy weather accounts for my melancholy of late. My throat is feeling better and the cough has subsided, and I’m still taking my morning walks—remarkably, I’ve only needed to carry an umbrella on one of the mornings, as all this rain seems to occur in the early mornings, afternoons, and evenings—but I’ve felt rather dull, overall. It was good that we had Cub Scouts at our house last night, because it forced me to get some chores done around the house. I’d been procrastinating on some of my housework—I never feel like cleaning when the sky is gray. I take some comfort from the fact that my mother, who is a whirling dervish when it comes to housework, says she is the same way and hasn’t been doing much, either. (Apparently, it’s been dreary down in St. Pete these days, too.)
Well, hopefully we’ll have a good bit of sun soon, so I can get out and tackle my mess-of-a-yard. In the meantime, I know I’ve been neglecting this blog, and I’m going to make more of an effort at keeping it written up.
