It’s a curiously mild winter this year; not a flake of snow, no frost yet really, and temperatures in the 50s all week. We had a couple of weeks of hard rain washing through, come and gone. If only that were snow, and falling 30 miles away in the mountains; the snowpack level is only 42% of normal. That could mean wildfire trouble this summer.

But anxiety does better with a walk to just look and explore the way things are right now.

Here’s a very close-up peek at some tiny moss, all different kinds, in early sun and dew.

Manzanita flowers:

Here is a small hedge of Sarcococca, “Christmas Box.” Earlier in the year it had shiny black berries; now it has little white flowers with a wonderful sweet fragrance. It’s really nice to walk through the winter dark, and step in to a zone of this lovely scent:

Here is Witch Hazel, another sweet scent that blooms in the cold; the flowers come in a whole range of shades from pale yellow to rich reddish amber:

This could be a type of Alkanet — blooming in January for some reason.

Elephant-Ear Saxifrage:

And Alstroemeria:

This little show-stopper bloomed during Christmas Week. It’s new to me, but according to my iPhone this is called “Kiss-Me-Over-The-Garden-Gate.”

At least the Where’s Winter? worries can still find something beautiful to appreciate while we keep an eye on the sky.