Can’t remember a warmer April here on Skinny Island.  We normally would have two or three nice days, say topping out in the mid-seventies, then cool and windy for a week, a little rain, cycling like that.  This year we’ve been warm and dry all month, with many days getting up into the high eighties here, and past ninety on the mainland.  Summer-like humidity creeping in as well.  All this warm moist air from the Gulf and Caribbean moving up and colliding with cold fronts in the mid-west to create one nasty tornado scenario after another.  Something’s going on, ideology notwithstanding.

Cactus Flowers

Most everything living around the little hacienda has jumped up and thrived in April, especially the tough natives that can do without water and love the heat, the cacti, beach sunflowers, and aloe.  Sand fleas and ghost crabs have made an earlier appearance than normal on the beach, and the Anole and Indigo snake communities are in full throat.  Only the garden has suffered.  We can’t seem to keep enough water on it without rain, even watering in the evening and morning when it’s in shade.   Everything is hanging in there, but the fruiting is slow as the plants conserve water to stay alive.

Many stunningly clear, cloudless days this month.  Today is warm with some promising clouds moving up from the south in a brisk southeast wind.  There are showers visible offshore but nothing coming in yet.  Good cross ventilation in the little hacienda, another lost art.  The sea breeze runs throughout the house and keeps things pleasantly cool most days.

The Right Path

Fourth straight day of surf running 4-6 feet, but we didn’t go out today.  We seem to be in the grip of a summer-like malaise, a Somnolence, if you will, induced by these Dog Days of April.  This does not bode well for any productivity henceforth.  Not that there’s really anything to get done.  We are just struggling a little with this climate shift, the leaning to a more year-round tropical feel.  It is welcome, but disruptive, too, something we haven’t fully wrapped the mind around, but we are working on that.  Slowly, of course.  Summer is early this year.  We wouldn’t mind if it lasted through December.

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