Wild Weather: A Look Back at 2011

Happy New Year!

OK, so I know it's actually Feb. 5, and it's been 2012 for more than a month now. But yesterday ushered in the new Year of the Dragon in Chinese astrology, and that's close enough for me.

Three days ago, on Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow in Gobbler's Knob, Penn. That reportedly means another six weeks of winter. That's OK. In fact, so far, this winter has been fairly mild for us in Dallas. Nothing like last year .....

Which brings us to 2011. I know I'm not the only one who's happy to say goodbye to 2011! Here in Texas, 2011 brought plenty of trouble: snowstorms, a heat wave, drought, wildfires and a state budget crisis.

Snowstorms: The year started off with an unusually cold winter, with several snowstorms that closed down schools throughout north Texas and kept kids home from school for days. An ice storm in early February, followed by three days of below-freezing temperatures and then a snowstorm, caused hundreds of auto accidents, forced the canceling of 300 flights to Dallas airports and caused lots of headaches for football fans trying to travel to Dallas to see the Super Bowl on Feb. 6 at Arlington's giant new Cowboys Stadium. (For more, visit this New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/us/05storm.html)

We had 100 hours below freezing, which was the longest stretch of freezing temperatures we'd had in more than 20 years. (See http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/?n=feb2011) My kids were home from school for four days!!! (I hope that doesn't happen EVER again!)

Heat wave: Last year saw a horrible heat wave that turned out to be the state's worst ever recorded! (That's the worst since at least 1895.) August was the hottest month in Dallas since records began in 1898. All kinds of heat records were broken all over the Southern U.S. (See http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/2011-heat-superlatives_2011-07-15) For example, here in Dallas, we set a new record of 71 days over 100 degrees in one year! (See this article for more: http://dallas.about.com/od/neighborhoods/qt/Dfw-Weather-70-Days-And-We-Have-A-New-Record-For-Triple-Digit-Temperatures.htm)

It was so hot every day that my kids and I experimented with dashboard dining, cooking all kinds of food on our car dashboard on those hot summer days.


Drought: The hottest summer on record, paired with low rainfall totals, led to a terrible drought throughout the Southern U.S. After last summer, almost all of Texas was in a state of extreme drought. At least 13 people in Dallas died from the heat, and the overburdened state power grid, facing unprecedented demand for electricity as people ran their air conditioners constantly, was at risk of shutting down. (See more at http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/08/05/texas-drought-may-persist-for-another-year/)

The dry conditions caused about $5.2 billion in agricultural losses in the state's worst single-year drought on record. (See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/28/texas-wildfires-agriculture-losses_n_986276.html) Also affected were the state's water table and lake levels, which fell significantly.

Wildfires: The lack of rain, plus the incredible heat spell, combined to make a perfect firestorm of wildfires that burned about 4 million acres in Texas, doubling the previous record. Firefighters responded to more than 28,000 fires in Texas in the 2011 fire season. The fires burned 2,862 homes and led Gov. Rick Perry to declare a State of Disaster. The fires were so huge, they could be seen from space. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Texas_wildfires)

Budget crisis: To top it all off, the nationwide recession left its mark on Texas, forcing the state Legislature to make billions of dollars in cuts to state services, including a 6% cut to schools that forced districts across the state to lay off thousands of teachers. These cuts not only continue but increase in the 2012-2013 school year.

So in summary, most of 2011 was long, hot, dry and miserable for a lot of folks. So far, 2012 is looking up a little. A big, wet storm pushed through Dallas last week, raising area lake levels and lifting a tiny part of north Texas out of drought stage. (Read it in the Star-Telegram: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/02/3708618/big-rain-ends-drought-in-dallas.html)

Let's hope that last week's rains, like a breath of fresh air, herald a better year for us all in 2012, both in Dallas and wherever you are.

Happy New Year!!!

Dashboard Pizza Bagels

Guess what! Today's high was ONLY 95 degrees! That's actually a cooling trend for us this summer in Dallas, and it's about time, too! This summer went down in the record books as the hottest summer ever recorded in Dallas, although we missed tying 1980's record of total days over 100 degrees (69 in 1980) by only two days. (See article here.) To commemorate the heat wave, an enterprising Texan is now selling T-shirts proclaiming, "I survived the heat wave of 2011"!

I think I speak for just about everyone here in Texas when I say we're ready for some nicer weather. A cool front is supposed to be arriving tomorrow, bringing us a much-deserved low of 59 degrees F! (I'll believe it when I see it!)

Anyway, I'm wrapping up this summer's series on Car Cookery with a snack we ate a lot in college: pizza bagels.

I made these a while ago when our heat wave was still in full force. The outside temperature was 105 degrees, and it was 158 in our trusty Suburban. It's a recipe so easy that even college kids can make it.

First, grab a bagel, and cover the center with a slice of pepperoni so the sauce and toppings don't fall through the middle.

Then add whatever toppings you like. I added pepperoni, black olives, red onions, garlic powder and mozzarella cheese.

Put them in a pan, and then broil them in your oven, toaster oven or hot car.

When all the cheese is melted, take a bite! They're awesome!

If you've enjoyed my entries about Car Cookery, you may want to read some posts by a woman in Phoenix in her series titled "Dashboard Dining." Her stories are funny, and I'm really impressed by the elegant three-course meals she has cooked in her vintage Mercedes Benz. Maybe next summer I'll be inspired to cook something gourmet on my dashboard.

And surprisingly enough, there's another way to cook with  your car: on its engine block! I first heard of this when I watched an episode of Food Network's "Extreme Chef" TV show. The contestants had to cook an appetizer on a hot car engine, and miraculously, two of the three dishes turned out OK! Apparently this is not a new idea. You can check it out on WikiHow, WiseBread, YouTube or Instructables. There's even a whole cookbook on engine-block cooking titled "Manifold Destiny"! So feel free to be creative in your future cooking experiments. Engine cooking would even be good when it's not hot outside, so you could do it in the spring, fall or winter. Why not try it the next time you're camping or going on a picnic?

I hope you've enjoyed my posts on Car Cookery. It's been fun. Let me know if you've ever tried cooking anything in an unusual way!

It's Official: Our Hottest Summer Ever!

Whew! It's official! The National Weather Service announced today that this has been the hottest summer ever on record for the Dallas-Fort Worth area, eclipsing the Awful Summer of 1980 for the highest average temperature with 90.6 degrees.

Although we missed tying 1980's 42-day streak of 100-degree days by only two days, we've still made it into the record books for something. I'm glad that after enduring this relentlessly hot summer, we at least have some bragging rights!

And we still may tie the 1980 record for the most total days over 100 degrees. Today was Day 65, and the 1980 record was 69. (See the full story here.)

I've gotten so used to this heat that it will feel really strange when this heat wave finally breaks.

But won't it feel nice?

Dashboard S'mores

Hello again from the Land of Always Summer, aka Dallas, Texas.

This year is turning out to be the second-hottest summer in recorded history, trailing only the unbearable summer of 1980. (I'm glad we didn't live here then!) This month we finally ended our 40-day streak of 100-degree-plus temperatures with a day in the high 90s, meaning we came within two days of tying the 1980 streak of 42 days. Rats!

And now, as we wind up August, we've had 63 days of at least 100 degrees. Right now it's only 95 degrees, which actually feels good by this point. The record of the most 100-degree days in Dallas is 69 days in 1980. So we still have a shot at meeting that record, although I'm not sure I want to.

One of the more interesting things we've done this summer is to try our hands at dashboard cooking in our old Chevy Suburban. We've made quesadillas, garlic bread, grilled-cheese sandwiches, cinnamon toast, hot dogs, bruschetta and beef jerky. As the temperature inside the car can easily hit 120 degrees and above on a hot day, most of our experiments have turned out quite well.

By far the most popular experiment with our kids was the dashboard s'more. Easy and tasty, it came out great! Since then, I found this funny song on YouTube titled "Dashboard S'mores." It takes place -- you guessed it! -- in Texas. Where else?

I've also come across several people who've baked chocolate chip cookies in their cars! You can find out more at Discover Magazine, Baking Bites, SnarkyVegan or Completely Delicious. We'll have to try that sometime as well! I bet the smell inside your car is heavenly. :)

I've also found a surprising number of online articles about solar cookery using cardboard boxes covered in aluminum foil, or funky reflective dishes that look like giant woks. This turns out to work great in hot places such as Africa, where they don't have electricity or Suburbans. And it might be fun for a Scout project.

For now, though, we'll continue trying car cookery and hoping for our heat spell to eventually end. But maybe it would be nice if we could break that 1980 record, for bragging rights anyway.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Happy Back-to-School Day!!!

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved going back to school: picking out my favorite outfit to wear, seeing my friends again, toting a brand-new lunchbox with a PBJ and a Hostess Ho Ho, wearing new leather shoes, meeting my new teachers, and seeing which boys had grown taller and more handsome over the summer.

Now that I'm a mother, the first day of school has morphed into my all-time favorite holiday of the year! The above video accurately reflects the states of mind in our house as I excitedly prepared the kids for school and they looked at me glumly and asked why they had to return to that horrid place.

Here in Dallas, yesterday was the first day of school, and I've enjoyed seeing all the Facebook photos of my friends' kids all dressed up, brandishing their backpacks and ready to face a new year of classes. It's fun to see how all our kids are growing and changing, getting a little bit older and a little bit more jaded every year. Even though my own kids complained, I of course took their obligatory pictures in our front yard as well. It's a family tradition! I remember my mom took our pictures on our first days of school so many years ago, and it's fun now to look back at them and see the feathered hair, big jewelry and "cool" outfits we sported so many years ago.

The temperature here in Dallas this August is still well over 100 degrees every day (we're now enduring the second-hottest summer in recorded history), but band kids and high school football players have been marching and practicing for weeks already in the heat. And even though the thermometer doesn't say it's fall, it's nonetheless time to head back to school.

Although I may groan at the cost of binders and notebooks, I consider the small fortune I've spent on school supplies a fair price to pay for 6.92 hours of peaceful bliss every school day for the next nine months. With all my kids now safely at school, I can finally hear myself think for the first time in three months. You know those new kindergarten moms crying on the first day of school? I was practically crying tears of joy as I did my happy dance!

So while Back-to-School Day may not be an official holiday, to me it's the best one of all. Best wishes to all the parents, kids and teachers as they embark on another journey of learning.

And then start the party!!!

Dashboard Beef Jerky

Our latest foray into dashboard dining is a blast from the past ... beef jerky! With our record summer temps this year above 100 degrees for 40 days in a row, we thought we'd try an ancient method of food preservation: drying meat in the sun.

According to "The History of Beef Jerky," Since prehistoric times, one of the oldest methods of preserving food was drying it in the sun. In North and South America, native Americans dried strips of deer, elk and buffalo in the sun to eat later. In the land later called Peru, a tribe called the Quechua (part of the Inca empire) dried meat and called it ch'arki. This term later became charqui and then jerky. In later years, North American pioneers dried meat by smoking it or by draping it over the outside of their covered wagons for two to three days as they headed westward.

At our house, my husband is a big beef jerky fan and usually makes his jerky in the oven or in his smoker. But last week he decided to try making his beef jerky on the dashboard of our Suburban because it was about 105 degrees, and the inside of the car gets really hot when it sits outside in the sun all day long.

First he bought some thinly cut beef strips and marinated them. Then he laid them over racks atop the car dashboard.

The jerky sat in the sun for several hours, with the car windows cracked open so the meat could dry more easily.

My husband said the jerky drying actually went more quickly than he anticipated. It came out perfectly and used no electricity to make. Just think how much easier and faster it could have been for the pioneers if they had had Suburbans instead of Conestogas!

And of course, we had to taste-test the car food to make sure it was safe to eat. In this case, the boys ate it all by the next day! Luckily for us, it didn't have to last us weeks on the trail.

Next up in car cookery: pizza bagels.

The Return of Rain

  "The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,

And drinks, and gapes for drink again.

The plants suck in the earth, and are

With constant drinking fresh and fair."

-- Abraham Cowley,

1618-1667

After nearly a month without rain, and more than a month of 100-degree-plus temperatures, we awoke at 4:45 a.m. to a strange sound: rain!

It turns out that my husband had left the car windows open last night, so of course that's why it rained. If I'd realized that was better than a rain dance, we would have left them open earlier!

So after I ran out in the pouring rain and closed the car windows, we listened to the welcome patter of rain falling on the parched landscape, where streams had run dry and lawns have turned brown all over town. It rained for four straight hours! By the time we woke up this morning, our empty pond had filled up, the creek had overflown its banks, and everything was dripping wet with little pearls of water.

Almost the entire state of Texas is suffering from severe drought this summer, so this one rainstorm won't solve all our problems, but it brought wonderful relief after weeks and weeks of dry, deathly heat. Unfortunately, we endured 40 days of 100-degree-plus heat without even setting a new record! I was really rooting for Dallas to tie or break the old 1980 record of 42 days of 100 degrees in a row, but a silly cool front dropped down from Oklahoma two days ago and stopped us in our tracks at 40 days. What a cruel trick of Mother Nature to give us 40 days of 100+ heat and then make it 97 on Day 41! So this summer ends up in the record books as the second-hottest summer of recorded history. However, we have set some other heat records this year.

I guess I'm happy we don't live in Wichita Falls, which has been in triple digits for about 52 days and has shattered its previous heat record.

After baking in the relentless heat for weeks on end, our yard and plants eagerly drank up this morning's rain, and the heat index dipped about 30 degrees, making it actually pleasant to be outside! The rain cleaned the dust off our cars, filled our birdbath and formed reflecting pools on the street.

When the rain evaporated, it got really humid. But the respite from dry heat was nice while it lasted.

Let's Get a Bruschetta!

 

Hello again from Dallas, where we are closing in on the dubious distinction of suffering through the longest stretch of 100-degree-plus days in recorded history! As we parents wait eagerly for the start of school (yahoo!), our heat-addled brains have come up with new ways to entertain our families in the broiling heat of the summer. One novel idea for us is car cookery, or cooking food in the solar heat built up in our 1999 Chevy Suburban. With the city's heat at all-time highs nearly every day this month, we have more than enough solar energy to cook a few things in the car.

Why cook in the car? There are several good reasons for doing so:

1. to cook when camping

2. for summer amusement

3. as scientific experimentation

4. to save energy and lower your electric bills

5. to cook during power outages, and

6. to avoid heating up the house with your indoor oven

So if you live in a hot part of the country, why not try something new?

Today's entry into the annals of car cookery is much fancier than yesterday's cinnamon toast. We've already tried car-cooking plenty of kid favorites, such as quesadillas, garlic bread, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs and that all-time classic, s'mores. But man cannot live on kid food alone, so I thought I'd branch into something more sophisticated: bruschetta. 

Bruschetta (pronounced "broosketta" in Italian) is a yummy appetizer made with baguette rounds, fresh tomatoes and basil. For my recipe I looked online and found a five-star version here on allrecipes.com. When I made the bruschetta yesterday, it was 105 F outside and 158 degrees on the car dashboard.

First I sliced the fresh baguette into 3/4" slices.

 

 I toasted the bread slices for about half an hour in the car until they were warm and slightly crunchy. In the meantime, I chopped all the tomatoes and assembled the savory topping. Then I spooned some topping onto each baguette slice and sprinkled a little bit of mozzarella cheese on each one. 

Then it was back in the "oven."

I let the bruschetta broil under the windshield about 45 minutes, until the topping was warm and the cheese had started to melt. I could have let it go longer, but it was dinnertime, and we were hungry!

After I brought them in, I garnished each round with a fresh basil leaf from our yard. They looked so cute and tasted so yummy! Sadly, our kids were too chicken to try them (they prefer cinnamon toast), but that only left more for my husband and me -- oh, darn! We even had a bunch left over for our neighbor, who gladly tasted them even though they were cooked in our Suburban.

The bruschetta turned out to be the tastiest and most elegant food we've made in the car yet ... definitely a success!!!

And it's only a few more days until we break that 1980 heat-wave record!

Next up in car cookery: sun-dried beef jerky.

Dashboard Cinnamon Toast

Cinnamon toast made in our car.

Hello, again! Here in Dallas, we're still in the middle of an extreme heat wave and extreme drought, so we're trying to entertain ourselves without using water and without being outside. One thing we're not in want of is solar power, so we've decided to use it to cook as many things as we can.

Yesterday it was 105 degrees in the sun and 181 degrees on our car dashboard, so I thought I'd try to make cinnamon toast. It was so easy that kids can do it.

(By the way, can you believe that if you Google "cinnamon toast," you'll actually see lots of recipes for basic cinnamon toast? I'm as surprised that anyone would need a recipe as I'm surprised people would actually buy little bottles of cinnamon sugar in the store. Seriously, can't people figure out how to mix cinnamon and sugar?)

Anyway, all I did was butter some sandwich bread, sprinkle it with my very own homemade cinnamon sugar and place it in a pie pan on the car's dashboard.

The bread before we put it in the car.

In about 15 minutes, the toast was done and ready to eat. It wasn't very "gourmet," but my boys ate it all.

So if you need to entertain your children cheaply in the summer, try toasting some bread in your car. If you don't like cinnamon toast, try regular buttered toast, and then add jelly when you bring it inside.

If your kids like the car toast, then they'll really like the car s'mores I made last week.

Garlic Bread "A La Car"

This is the "after" picture.

As Texas broils in a heat wave (Today is Day 35 of 100 degrees plus), what better time to make "Texas toast"?

Yesterday in our Suburban I made one of my favorite foods: garlic bread. So easy, and yet so delicious! The high temperature yesterday (which happened to be a record high) was 108, so it was more than hot enough to toast garlic bread on the dashboard of our car. (For more information on our heat wave, click here.) In fact, a reporter using a fancy laser gun measured the temperature of a car dashboard in the sun at 165 degrees. She also measured  the rubber mat on a playground at 180 degrees! (Click here for full story.) But I digress.

Anyway, I didn't have any French bread, so I used sandwich bread. First I buttered it, then sprinkled garlic powder on it, then layered some Italian cheese on top. After about 15 minutes, it was done. It turned out as well as any garlic bread I've made in our real oven, and this was energy-efficient because I didn't have to pay for the car oven. (And it's a good thing, too, since the Texas power grid has been straining all week to keep our air conditioners going, and they're asking everyone to conserve electricity.)

This is the "before" picture.

So the garlic bread was great ... yum!!! And there was a bonus, too: The inside of the car smelled really good! 

What will we try next?

Hot Dog! It's More Car Cookery!

Greetings from Texas! It's time for more car cookery!

Today for lunch we tried heating up hot dogs on our Suburban's dashboard. The hot dogs are already precooked, so they need only to be warmed up enough to eat. Luckily for us, that was no problem.

We decided to steam them a little so they'd end up moist and not shriveled. First we placed four hot dogs in a pie pan, then added a little bit of water and covered them with a damp paper towel. It was 100 degrees F outside and far hotter than that inside the car as it sat in the sun with all the windows closed.

After about 30-45 minutes, they were warm enough to eat. 

Most of the water had evaporated, and the paper towel was completely dry, but the hot dogs were moist and had that good hot dog smell. We placed them in buns and added our toppings. The testers pronounced them satisfactory and ate all of them.

Best of all: We didn't have to use any energy to make them, because all the solar energy we could ever want is provided free by our friend the Sun.

Next up: garlic bread!

Sandwiches, Suburban Style

As Dallas endures its 32nd day in a row of 100-degree-plus temperatures, we decided to make another entry for our upcoming Suburban cookbook. Today's experiment is ... grilled cheese sandwiches. No, not cooked on the car's grill, but on its dashboard.

We started by preheating a nonstick black frying pan on the car's dashboard as the car sat out in the sun with all the doors and windows closed. With today's outside temperature at 106 degrees, it was plenty hot enough inside the car. After the pan was warm, we put the buttered sandwiches in and cooked them about 15 minutes on each side.

The resulting sandwiches were hot and greasy, with melted cheese and toasted bread. Offering to serve as tasters were our two boys, both self-professed grilled-cheese experts. They pronounced the results edible but not as good as regular grilled-cheese sandwiches. The sandwiches looked OK to me, but apparently the bread turned out a little hard and didn't have quite the right texture.

Luckily the dog thought they were just fine. :)

So what should we try next?

Spring and Summer Flowers

"Earth laughs in flowers."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882

What are your favorite things? Raindrops on roses? Whiskers on kittens?

Some of my favorite things are books, cool days, my children, chocolate chip cookies and ... flowers.

My all-time favorite season is spring because the earth wakes up from its dormant sleep, puts on a fresh coat of green and comes alive with splashes of color.

Here in Texas, the state plants millions of wildflower seeds along the highways that turn our roadsides into seas of blue, red and yellow in the spring.


Our most famous flower (above) is the state flower, the bluebonnet. In other parts of the country, they may just be called blue lupine, but here in Texas, they go by the common, folksy name of bluebonnets.



The bluebonnet is so popular in Texas that it graces license plates, postcards, T-shirts and trivets. Every spring, it is a Texas tradition to take family photos among the bluebonnets.

The top photo shows a gorgeous field of bluebonnets that we have right across the street in the park by our house. Every spring I have the kids pose for me as I take another picture in the modern Texas tradition. Every year, they look a little older!



These little white star flowers emerged this spring from tiny bulbs in my flowerbed. I love to walk outside when the weather warms in spring and find new and pleasant surprises every day!



These delicate yellow wildflowers bloom throughout fields in the spring. I think these were by my children's school.



This is a dandelion in my back yard. I used to pull dandelions, but now we have pet zebra finches, and they love to eat dandelion leaves. So we let the dandelions take over a patch in our back yard. And they put on pretty yellow flowers in the spring and intricate globes of white as they go to seed.



These wee blossoms grow in little patches in the park by our house. They look a little like teeny-tiny blue irises!

These lovely yellow irises are newcomers to my flowerbeds, transplanted from a friend's yard. Irises really are some of the easiest plants to transplant.



I love all types of flowers, both wild and cultivated. Their beauty always brightens my days.

I hope these photos have brightened yours!

Huge Snowstorm in Texas!

Last month we had an amazing weather event here in north Texas that's even rarer than a blue moon.

We had a huge snowstorm! Usually we get about an inch of snow once or twice a winter. This year, we got about a foot of snow at once! It snowed here for about 24 hours straight and set several new records in north Texas. It was the most snow on the ground at one time that most of us have ever seen around here. In fact, it was the most snow recorded in one 24-hour period in Dallas since the 1930s!

It first started snowing Thursday, Feb. 11. Then it snowed all night, and when we woke up Friday morning Feb. 12, it looked like a winter wonderland outside! With no wind, the snow fell silently all night and clung to every branch and twig. Our house looked like a picture postcard.



All the kids in the Metroplex got a snow day on Friday, and almost every kid in the neighborhood was out playing in the snow all day. Our kids all went to the little park near our house and made snowmen and snow angels, built snow forts, waged snowball fights and took turns sliding down the little hills on plastic saucers. I even got out our old cross-country skis from the garage, where they have sat unused to years, and we all skied around the neighborhood! It was the first time our kids had ever gotten up on skis.

After that snowstorm came the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. The kids were so entertained watching all the athletes skiing, sledding and snowboarding that now they want to move somewhere it snows every winter!

A White Christmas

"In the meadow we can build a snowman, then pretend that he is Parson Brown."
-- Felix Bernard,

"Winter Wonderland," 1934

No, that's not Parson Brown above. He's actually not even snow. (He's plastic.) But he is surrounded by real snow. It snowed here Christmas Eve!

After all those years of yearning for a white Christmas, we finally got one here in north Texas. In fact, it was the first white Christmas here since 1926! We awoke Christmas morning to a beautiful white wonderland as pretty as a picture postcard.

The snow covered the flowerbeds like fluffy white down.



It even covered the rabbits on the front porch. They think you won't see them if they hold perfectly still.



After opening their presents Christmas morning, the boys had some wild fun throwing snowballs and sliding down our little hill.

But sooner or later, cold noses and frosty fingers mean it's time to come inside.



Would anyone like some hot chocolate?

Visions of Fall

"Autumn"


Autumn in felted slipper shuffles on,
Muted yet fiery ...
... in the garden
Maples are garish, and surprising leaves
Make sudden fires with sudden crests of flame
Where the sun hits them

-- Vita Sackville-West, 1892-1962

The above excerpt of poetry by Vita Sackville-West is practically the only positive quotation I could find about autumn. I was quite surprised, because I love fall, and it is positively a reason for joy here in Texas, where it is not unheard of to have 100 days of 100+ temperatures in the summer. (Believe me, I've lived through it!)

Most of the classic writers, however, have lived in old England, New England and other places where winters are bleak and summers are actually pleasant. Most of the classic poets write rhapsodies about temperate summer days and describe autumn as a melancholy time of decline and getting older.

But I say fall is getting a bad rap! Although spring is definitely my favorite season, fall is right there behind it. If you don't live up north, summer is a period of dreadful heat, and we here in Dallas are always thrilled and relieved when we feel that first touch of cool air in the autumn. So there need to be more poems about the wonders of fall!

After the long, hot days of summer, autumn is a breath of fresh air.



I love the way the days cool down and you feel that frosty nip in the air for the first time in the fall. I love the old back-to-school fashions of thick tights and red plaid skirts. I love how the leaves decorate the yard with gorgeous colors of brown, red, yellow and orange. I don't even want to rake them up because they look so pretty. I wish my camera could better capture the way the sun shines through the leaves and dapples the grass with golden rays of light.

We were lucky this year to enjoy a lovely, prolonged season of beautiful autumn weather, perfect for playing outside and going birding. In fact, we saw many birds we haven't noticed in years past: yellow-rumped warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets, dark-eyed juncos. We think many of them were stopping by this year to enjoy our beautiful fall weather instead of just flying through on their fall migrations. Sometimes it just goes straight from summer heat to winter cold here in Texas, but we had a real autumn this year, and it was wonderful.

Then we woke up Dec. 2, and it was snowing!



The snow didn't last very long, and it didn't stick around. In fact, it melted in a couple of hours. But it was so pretty while it lasted. Thanks to a very early and very cold storm front, we were treated to a little bit of white.

Even our green chairs got a dusting of snow.



The kids were disappointed that school wasn't canceled.

But here in Texas, you just never know what the weather will bring you. In fact, there's a saying here that if you don't like the current weather, just wait 10 minutes and it will be something else. It's actually fairly common to have temperature swings of 30 to 40 degrees in one day, or even 15 degrees in a matter of minutes if an arctic front comes our way!



I found my "Autumn" quote in the above book "Forest's Robe" by Penhaligon and edited by Sheila Pickles. Penhaligon made several such gorgeous gatherings of poetry and prose in themes such as love, the four seasons, Christmas, weddings, etc. They include beautiful color artwork inside and are even scented with lovely perfumes from Penhaligon's line! After 17 years, my copy still smells pretty!

Unfortunately, winter is just around the corner, and we have already had a string of below-freezing nights that have killed my lush, green summer plants. But yesterday I noticed a little narcissus already blooming in my flowerbed! Poor, confused little baby daffodil.

It's not even officially winter yet, but I guess spring -- my favorite season -- is coming soon!