Good Morning Gentle Readers,
The holidays have brought us some chilly weather this year, including several days of cold, dry, howling Santa Ana winds. TWC doesn't mind, though, because it's just not Christmas without a fire. Not that kind of fire!
One of our family holiday traditions is a Christmas morning fire that is perked up with last year's tree. After Christmas, we strip the tree, mulch the branches, and then cut the trunk into fireplace size pieces, which season over the hot dry summer.
TWC's semi-offical weather widget is linked to a private weather station just a few miles away at almost the same elevation, so there is a good chance the reported temp is pretty accurate.
The advisory is for frost in the valleys. When oranges were king, the smudge posts would have been fired up about midnight last night. One of the unintended benefits of the grandiose view is that the casa is sited on a rather steep hillside. That means the cold air readily slides down-slope allowing the warmer air to rise. Warmer being a relative term. This mostly protects our citrus and other frost sensitive shrubs and flowers from damage or death.
We get just enough nippy winter weather to appreciate that the seasons have moved on while avoiding the brutal, frigid, monotonous cold of a prairie winter. That's fine by me and preferable to the boring weather of coastal Orange County, where I spent some of my vagrant yoot. I doubt it ever got colder than 50 or warmer than 85. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly OK with that weather if I'm plunked on a beach in always-sunny Hawaii.
As Always,
Photo Credit (unless otherwise noted): ©TWC, all rights reserved
