It’s February, bloomin’ blooming time again in California. I get excited about spring, as always, but my eyes and nose aren’t as fond of it as they once were. When I turned 40, all of a sudden, I had allergies – to my cats, to dogs, to anything that flowered and more. My mother says some day they may disappear as unexpectedly as they arrived. I hope so.
Today on a walk in the Berkeley hills I saw three deer, one a fawn, munching grass on a hillside. Nearby, three monarch butterflies stayed in flight – two seemed to be having a turf war like hummingbirds do. An indigo blue stellar jay sat on a wooden railing squawking at another up in a tree, then flew off. Mid-step, I watched a bee approach my leg before it buzzed away, off to find a bloom or two. The daffodils are in their full glory and a few have started fading already. Besides the yellow, there is the purple of the flowering Mexican sage, French lavender, rosemary, and thistle. Soon, when the thistle is about to go to seed, there will be a finch frenzy. On my way back, I passed the gang of wild turkeys, as always, they were in a cluster and ceaselessly pecked at choice morsels on the ground.