Has already arrived here in the Bay Area. It is hot. The sprinklers are running. Plants are tripling in size practically overnight. We are going to need to get air conditioning of some kind.

But despite my dislike of heat and sunshine in general (once that would have meant anything over 75 degrees, now it means anything over 90) there are many upsides to the season. The pool is already ready and grilling time is upon us. Hopefully I can add a couple of burners and enlarge the grill itself for this summer (or at least make it two-tiered).

But most importantly, we start to get the real benefits of living in Northern California - the produce. Our vegetable box had two kinds of asparagus (regular and purple), arugula, grapefruit, lemons, carrots, green garlic, leeks, almonds and kiwi fruit this week. Artichokes are in the stores. We are still getting reasonable winter greens (collard, mustard, kale, chard). Sometime soon we will get strawberries and lettuces and then spring onions and tomatoes and corn and cherries and...you get the picture.