Sweating it out

[rejectomorph]

It isn't unusual for October to be warm here, but 93 degrees? I've had to turn the air conditioner on. Looks as though autumn is trying to make up for summer's comparative mildness. I hope that this does not presage one of those dry winters. I like mild winters, but a dry winter is very bad here. It usually leads to a very bad fire season the next summer. The fires we've had for the last two summers were bad enough. I know that, sooner or later, this place is likely to go the way of the Oakland hills, but I'd rather that it happen after I leave. Even now, the pines along the last ridge on the eastern edge of town have so many brown needles that, in the sunset, they flush like a wall of burnished copper. It is a beautiful sight, but one that is very disturbing to anyone who understands the potential for disaster which lies in dried-out conifers.