Hey, it could be snow.

(I laughed for a full 2 minutes when I read that)
JCharlier, you are right!
Way to put thinks into perspective for me - I could be looking out to a succulent garden covered in a blanket of snow and ice...
Now THAT would be climate change!
Actully, my old Minion Z (Well, I can't honestly call him an "old" Minion, because he is very young, and because he hasn't really stopped minioning for me) said that it hailed in our neighborhood this morning.
I can't believed I missed it!
It's good that I did, because I might have had a total heart attack. Hail is the worst thing that can happen to succulents, because the falling ice pits the smooth leaves and does permanent damage to them.
Thanks for commenting, JCharlier - did I kind of go off on a tangent on you?

Ahhh, we had a beautiful rainbow today.
And, luck of all luck, there was a pause in the rain this morning and wonderful Manuel and his crew put in our new groundcover. This is special because DH and I usually do every single thing here on our couple of acres. No worries that it was too wet to install the sprinklers!
Next we'll prune all the natives and mediterranean plants so they'll (hopefully)be gorgeous by March when my garden club will meet here.

Sumcool, with this weather, your garden is going to be so lush and beautiful - do you guys give out awards? Get ready!

And who is this Manuel who will plant groundcover in a break between rainstorms? Will he re-locate to Los Angeles so he can take care of my gardens? No ... keep him under wraps. After making that garden all on your own, you deserve a great garden helper!

As I write this, there is another squall line whooping it up right over our roof. I am having visions of Old Man Cactus floating down the street....

Its funny how us SoCal peeps get so spoiled. I thought I would almost die yesterday when I was driving in the rain on the freeway. Hopefully this rain is just a storm and not El Nino. Remember when that came through a couple years ago...talk about feeling like Seattle came to dinner and moved in. :)

That's so true, Epmanda - we are totally spoiled by year-round good weather. Nobody remembers that you are supposed to drive slowly when it is raining Lions and Wolves! One of my most frightening driving experiences was driving on the Pasadena Fwy during a particulary bad El Nino storm. (For you non- East LA people, the Pasadena freeway is the oldest in the state. It is trecherous in the best of weather, very curvy, and people drive it like they are in the Indy 500) I had to pull off the freeway and cry. I thought I'd never get home and I'd drown right there, in my then-boyfriend's awful red truck on the side of the road.

I was glad to see El Nino go... these past few days have reminded me of that bad boy!
No more rain for a while... please... who do I see about this?

Tangents don't bother me that's how conversations go.

The hail reminds me of one of our Garden Walk Buffalo gardeners a few years back. She's got a spectacular Victorian garden that is the pride of Buffalo . About three weeks before Garden Walk, there was a hailstorm. She and her husband were outside holding umbrellas over their hostas! Sounds nuts, but they had the best looking hostas on the Walk that year, all the rest, including mine, were chewed up by the hail.

Those are gardeners after my wild heart!
I must say, if I was having a garden tour soon after, I'd probably be out there, shielding my hostas with my umbrella too!
But my husband would be inside, laughing at me...
JCharlier, that is the second time you've had me in a spasm of mirth today! I think that's a record.

Hmmm... only my wife has ever described me as a spasm of mirth... and that's not often.

Florida may be the Sunshine State, but during our rainy season, May - August, it rains every day. But here is how we deal with it: 3:55pm - Sunny, clear blue skies, maybe one little dark cloud on the horizon. 4:00pm ?torrential downpour, lots of lightening and thunder. 4:10pm - sunny again. Rarely does it rain all day. Of course, that said, it is now our dry period and for the last few Saturdays in a row it has been cold and rainy all day. Crazy weather! Maybe the rain will coincide with one of our freezes and then we?d get snow! I?d almost be okay with the fact all my plants would die just for the novelty of it snowing in Florida.

Wicked:
Crazy weather everywhere, huh? And snow in Florida would certainly be a harbinger of an impending apocalypse...
But it would be kinda cool!

JCharlier:
It's a compliment, believe me!

Your rainy day photos are really nice and I loved the line about you running about squealing! I can just picture it, because it's exactly what I do when i go out in the rain as well. Being in Central Texas, we weren't used to the deluge of rain we got all last Spring and Summer, either. I just kept telling myself, it's good for the drought and the garden (as I ran about squealing)!

I'm looking at the brighter side of all this rain.
We have a small design and build landscape company.
When it rains like this the crew can effectively work so they have been in my garage for the last two days crafting together the various construction elements for an upcoming garden show this spring.
The more it rains, the faster the 'garden set' gets pre-fabricated !
And to top things off, we had a great big fat rainbow dancing across the sky during a brief dry patch.

Oh Germi. Think of the GOOD the rain does. (That's my mantra, anyway, when I'm only halfway through monsoon season here in Vancouver). But I hear you about climate change wrecking havoc on the garden: it messes everything up (a small understatement).

Diana, Deviant, and Petal,
Your words are sorely needed right now, because after a tiny break in the rain yesterday morning, we had a total of 4 inches since last night! A deluge!
My back patio is flooded! That has never happened. I was so sick of the rain last night I screamed at the sky (I was also a little tipsy... a friend had an art opening and party after) and attempted a 'stop the rain' dance.
It just rained harder...
In my gardener's heart, I know the rain is good. In my global citizen's heart, I know we are coming close to water rationing - so this rain is good.But in my petulant 9-year-old girl heart, I WANT TO GO OUT AND PLAY!!!
You won't believe this. When I started typing this comment, it was POURING. Now, all the sudden, the clouds parted, the sun is shining with a vengance, and I see a rainbow in the distance!
Deviant, did you send it to me to cheer me up?
Thanks, girls - I needed that!

I'm with you, Germi. Enough rain already! Part of me wants to call in sick tomorrow because I feel like the rain stole my weekend. Did you see the big rainbow over Eagle Rock this afternoon? I suppose if we can't have sun, then a rainbow will do.

I really needed that rainbow, too, Chanchow! It lifted my spirits, gave me hope that there will be an end to it all ... and then it started raining again! OMG!
I must apologize to Heavy Petal, Katef, Chuckb, and all other readers who hail from rainier places - you all must think we Angelenos are such a wimpy bunch!
The truth is we can take pretty much all natural disasters in our stride, but rain on us and we melt, like the Wicked Witch of the West...