My friend Cal recently spied a tree that helped him really put together the thought that it takes energy to shed leaves. He’d observed a branch that had broken and lodged in the tree, noted the leaves browned, but were not shed though other branches, still alive, had shed their leaves in preparation for Winter. (They get seasons up there.)

These unseasonably mild winters are affecting us, and have for a while. There is no denying changes are going on, but if the changes are irreversible in a way, or something we shouldn’t be reversing, or part of a cycle that won’t be stopped even if we all do shrink our carbon/waste/unsustainability footprints.

Here I have a lovely day around me. The wind is blowing, we’ll have a mild shower to parch the drought of our still unseasonably dry dry season, I hear birds and am attacked by the tree pollen, and my feet crush through fresh fallen dry leaves. It’s Sprawl. Spring and Fall. Things are blooming and the trees are independently giving up on waiting for the Autumn signals to drop their leaves and take a sleep. It’s Sprawl in South Florida.

weeds-grass-dead-leaves-fresh-flowers

Then again, so is this:

But, in between the piles of sprawl, my little garden is coming back through it all. Yay!