High Pressure.

We traded low pressure for high — no rain, but a brisk wind out of the west that's knocking the tops of the trees around pretty thoroughly. And it feels like we're headed back in the direction of some good cold weather. Back and forth. We go back and forth. My lone complaint: not enough rain comes out of these swings. We're pretty well behind already. Again. Still.

To do list, before AMR returns tomorrow: Try to mitigate some of the squalor around here. Laundry. Dishes. Vacuum. I have maybe let things go a little bit.

We keep starting off with these heavy fogs each morning, and then burn those off into whatever it is that's setting up now, bright sky and low pieces of broken cloud scuttering along. It sounds like winter out there. The roof is groaning some, trying to lean back into the wind. The occasional limb comes down. The neighborhood dogs bark and whine.

April's a good month. Trees bloom and leaf out. This period in between — January into February — that's why winter jasmine, that's why crocus, that's why the clusters of blue fruit on La Vieja's trash elderberries. Little ways to measure. In March we'll get thunderstorms. If we're lucky. For now, these smaller items. The sun seems to be maybe a degree higher up off the horizon than I remember it being last week. It's cold out there. Every time I check the garden, the daffodils are a little bit further out of the ground.