This morning the runners in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon are taking to the streets down the hill from me. It’s overcast and cool enough, for sure. But somehow I’m not feeling motivated to run 26 miles…

The locals have a name for these two months when the morning cloud cover blots out the sun: May gray and June gloom. It makes for a slow easing into summer, good running weather, and prolongs the season when you can hope to put plants in the ground and not have to worry too much about keeping them watered.

Yesterday was extra-cool, and the thick marine layer of clouds made for a heavy drizzle most of the day. For me the sight of raindrops on plants is rare enough that I grabbed the camera.

Are photos of raindrops and dewdrops on plants and flowers cliches? Dunno. Even if they are, I think there’s something so satisfying about them that people need to keep taking them.

Below are all the photos I took in smaller gallery format. Going left to right: images 1-4, flowers of sacred datura, Datura wrightii; 5-6, leaves on tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii; 7, spiderweb on California fuchsia, Epilobium canum ‘Catalina’; 8, flowers of deerweed, Lotus scoparius.