Summer is here, and so is settling in to our home here in California. The kids are out of school and are currently doing a couple of day camps. We've had some house guests from back East and really loved playing tourist with them. We're getting to know our newly adopted area more and more, exploring the coastline and finding family-friendly beaches to go to. We're also experiencing our first summer weather here, which is something to get used to. First, it never rains. Ever. From what I hear, it never rains from around April to October. As a gardener in my previous East Coast life, I find this daunting to deal with. I would just plan on watering this copiously from a hose, but we have water issues here.... mainly a lack of it. So I content myself with planting some things in pots on the deck and trying to keep the puppy from pulling them out by their roots. Everything is also so very dry and arid (and very dusty). Apparently this area has an annual Fire Season, which has come early this year. It hasn't rained since February, and everything is tinder-dry. We were in the house for only 10 days when a wildfire broke out just a few miles from our new home.

With these fires breaking out in the area, and raging down in Big Sur, I've witnessed some things I've never seen before: smoke and fog rolling through my yard, and the sky turning the most amazing orange. It's all eerie, beautiful and reinforces my thinking that this place is far from boring.