WIND AND DUST AND MOODS

There are different names for various types of desert winds.

I grew up with the Santa Ana winds in Southern California. 

El Nino was recognized as a serious influence in world climate predictions.

And I love the photographs of the haboobs drowning the Phoenix area.

Right now we are just being plummeted with good old fashioned warm wind. And dust.

And I am trying very hard not to blame it for my overall grumpy mood.

It's not hot enough that I can blame the heat - it's barely in the 80's today

And it's not the blasting of cold wind that we get in the winter that cuts through you.

It's just dusty... and constant... and loud.

WIND WIND WIND

Did you know that the highest recorded wind was 253 mph., at Barrow Island in Australia?

And the world's record for heat was actually set at Death Valley, California at 134 degree?  (and I always figured the hottest places would be in the tropics)

The wind right now here is probably 30-40 mph - it's tough to stand up in, the dirt it is kicking up stings my face, but it's nothing hurricane strength.

So why am I complaining about it?

Because of the NOISE.

My poor little old dog cannot distinguish between the sound of the wind and oh let's say a  burglar trying to break down my front door.

So she is reacting to both with the same intense (albeit pretend) ferocity of barking and racing around, awaiting (her completely imaginary) illegal entry of our abode.

I just want some quiet.

WIND

Normally, there are some great things about windy days.

I grew up in the L.A. basin, where breezy days meant the smog was blown away, the skies were blue, and you could actually see the San Gabriel mountains six miles away.



Gusty days were always more interesting days to have a horse out - more things blowing around for him to spook at.




But windy days here in Southern Arizona almost can guarantee one thing.

Dust.

And more dust.

We have dust every single moment when the air is perfectly still - it just is about a jillion times more when blustery weather prevails.

To the point where it becomes difficult to see, let alone keep anything clean.



Today, however, the wind was shifting very very large semi-trucks on the interstate into sharing more of my lane of traffic than I was completely comfortable with.



Next windy day, I'm going to put-off driving to Tucson.

GONE WITH THE WIND

Wind is a little bit scary at times.

The weather forecasters can be counted on to predict a 10% chance of showers, and then have a four-day downpour cause massive flooding.

When they call for a week of complete sunshine, the dark clouds begin to move in immediately.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a job where you are consistently wrong and still be employed?

But wind - how can they predict so exactly something that you can't even SEE?

They seem to get it close to the MINUTE it will begin, the speed down perfectly, and how long it is going to last.

It's always amusing to hear the forecast for "hurricane-force" winds here in Arizona, where we are pretty far from any ocean.

Anyone know the secret?

AT THE TWIGHTLIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING

Growing up in Los Angeles, I would never have believed a photograph of what I saw this evening.

I took the horses out early tonight in hopes of terrifying someone.

We occasionally get dirt-bikers out here, racing up and down the roads, raising tons of dust and making that ultra-annoying WWWWWHHHHEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW high-pitched noise.

I admit the noise is the worse part for me. My partial deafness is concentrated in the mid-range - which means high and low pitches come through where normal voices and sounds don't. They come through EXTRA irritating.

But when we get bikers who are out here obviously to 'just have 'fun', I will either go out, stand in the middle of the road and force them to stop -- or follow them with my truck. block them on some dead-end path -- and give them a stern lecture on how these are NOT public roads, these are PRIVATE roads which we LIVE on, and if they wanna run their little cycles they are gonna have to go ELSEWHERE like the Sand Dunes outside of Yuma and do so QUICKLY before the county sherriff I have called shows up.

I'm 5'9", in my fifties, and believe me, I can make anyone under the age of 43 and 2 months on a bike SHAKE in their little black boots.

Which is what I was intending to do when I took the horses out, but as an additional threat, cut them off with two horses, neither of which has ANY fear of machines, motors or people.

But before any dirt bikes returned, I caught sight of the clouds glowing in the last beams of the setting sun.

And suddenly the silly dirt-biker didn't matter at all.

GETTIN' DOWN AND DIRTY

I don't mind dirt.


I try to keep my fingernails clean, I vacuum, I dust things when it becomes too obvious. I wash my hair a lot, and I take a bath almost every night (not for cleanliness so much as relaxation).

But I also live in southern Arizona, where dust is simply a significant part of the environment and our culture - sparkling clean cowboy boots that would be fine in New York City look silly down here. Same with real pick-ups and blue-jeans.

(Although I still can't get over paying money for jeans that LOOK worn and have holes. I could have made millions if I'd saved all of mine and kept them to sell on ebay)

And I must admit, I simply love dirt from horses.

I love the way horses smell, I love grooming them, I even love cleaning up AFTER them. It's the exact same infatuation ten-year-old girls go through - I just never outgrew it... as well as some other pre-adolescent traits, my family would add.

But I have a unique specimen in my Najale.

He is a cuddler.

Which is real cute with puppies and kittens, but is somewhat ridiculous for a 16.1 horse who weighs almost 1,000 lbs.

The weather has been good enough the last few days that I've gotten back with some 'serious' training (serious horse training, by my definition, means you actually put a halter on and use a lead rope and ask the horse to do something... almost anything).

And Najale has been remarkedly good, responsing correctly to voice commands, lunging nicely and paying attention to me.

Er... maybe that 'paying attention' should be translated into the lanuage of Najalese, where it means "every-time-I-do-something-correctly-for-Mom, I get to come over and nuzzle-slobber-rub-my-big-stinky-face-all-over-her-shoulder-and-face."

Proof?

I took a shower after working with Najale for almost an hour - scrubbed pretty hard - and STILL got the white bath-towel I used to dry off looking like THIS.