🐅 🐅 🐅 three tigers for ultimate May, and locally (here in the middle of the San Francisco peninsula) the tigers are blazingly summer-hot — in the 80s F yesterday, which made tending to my garden even in the early morning a challenge; the blooms of my cymbidium orchids (which thrive in our cool rainy winters) are withering away faster than flies dropping in a mist of Raid
Two flower stalks went down yesterday morning, and by 2 pm two more needed removal (although mad dogs and Californians will go out in the midday sun, this exotic Swiss transport from the green farmlands of Pennsylvania Dutch country will not), a task that awaits me as soon as the sun comes up — it’s only 4:30 am as I write this — by which time more will probably have succumbed, and they might all have gone down by the time the rabbits of June appear tomorrow. That would not be unusual. The plants will use the summer sun (and my daily waterings) to fortify their root systems, develop new pseudobulbs, and (eventually) send up fresh shoots as the rainy season begins, in December.
Meanwhile, the grasses and other plants on the hillsides will wither from lack of rain. The hillsides will turn golden brown for the hot dry summer, only to revive in fresh bright green when the rains come again; the world is renewed in green for Christmas and New Year’s Day, a transformation that never fails to delight me.
