Yep, it’s April, but I don’t know if T.S. Eliot ever came to the Southeast in the springtime. I look out the window and see glorious sunshine, deep blue sky, and vivid colors everywhere. I love flowers, even weeds—here are a few things from my yard that I love:




The light—oh, the light! Even the air seems to be luminous, a magical pale gold…well, kind of a greenish shade of gold.
Um…it’s pollen.
In the spring we have clouds of pollen that can be seen—blowing and drifting pollen with yellow-out conditions. Newcomers see yellow dust on their cars and think it is fallout from a chemical plant. And on beautiful spring days with low humidity and perfect temperatures, windows are shut fast against the piles of pollen. Dust your furniture in the morning and in the afternoon you can balance your checkbook with your bare hands.
Officially, a pollen count of over 120 is considered extremely high. This is ludicrous--in springtime it's rarely under four digits, unless it’s actually raining.
This April seems to be fairly average.

(Today the count on the radio was 28-oh-something, but I couldn't be sure because their website -- www.atlantaallergy.com--was down. Probably buried in the pollen.)
Last year was extraordinary because we didn’t have just a 100-year drought, we had a “Good Lord, I hope it doesn’t do THIS again, I’m having a picnic so it’ll rain on me” drought. I think we went all of March without any rain. One of the effects was this—

I was going to sell when it hit 6,000.
At this point allergy drops and antihistamines can do nothing—all you can do is drink lots of water, and every now and then take your eyeballs out and rinse them in the spin cycle.