BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE....

I don't live in the Arizona desert, I live in what they call "high-chaparral" country. We get too much rain during our two monsoon seasons 12 inches is the average) - although we are pretty parched the rest of the year.




So when it rains, this landscape turns green and lush and plants aggressively take over EVERYwhere.





So to me, these are simply lovely.




And beautiful.



Our INSANE amount of birds. who take advantage of even our CACTUSES to protect their babies. 






And we have the coolest moonrises in the world.

SMELL OF RAIN IN THE EVENING CLOUDS

Technically, I do not live in the desert.

We receive enough rain to classify as "high chaparral", which means twice a year we get enough rain to keep our yuccas, mesquite and broom cactus alive.

But we receive little enough that we do refer to it locally as "moisture", not rain.

And it's more than a little bit of an event when it falls.

We're on the cusp of our summer monsoon season, and every afternoon, we look with eagerness to the gathering dark clouds over the mountains.

And we rejoice even when a few sprinkles come fluttering down.

We need the rain badly.

DANGERS OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN

I live in what is called upper chaparral in lower Arizona.


Most people call it the desert, but that really isn't correct.

We get enough rain throughout the year to have mesquite trees, yucca, grasslands and even a green green landscape a couple times a year if we get the good monsoons.

And right now it looks like the garden of eden.





But us natives have mixed feelings about this.

The more greenery, the more that will end up dead and dried and potential fire fuel

And since we still have the scars of our Monument Fire from 2011 - 31,000 acres burned - and more than just the landscape was burned.













So personally? I'd rather just settle for year-round dust and brown, barren landscape.

MAKING FRIENDS

(An old song by Elton John that I had completely forgotten about - check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSfIDT0kJ7s - please ignore the ad)





The landscape around here looks like something from Ireland, not southern Arizona.

We've had a decent monsoon so far this year, and everything around here is furiously blooming and growing and making this arid landscape look like the tropics.

And since I don't believe in mowing the eight acres of land our house is on, it's pretty crazy looking around here.

Since I got rid of our goats a few months back, I only have the horses to graze it down.

So tonight my husband was in charge of Renegade, and I took Najale out.

And I must admit to a completely alternative purpose.

Not just grazing.

But to get Najale and Renegade better acquainted.

If things go as planned, when all the other Arabs I am horse-sitting go back to their rightful owner, Renegade is going to stay with us.

So I need to help these two boys get along with each other.

What better way than to allow them to pig out together for a bit of time?

TO EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

We've had our share of natural disasters over the past few years.

The Monument Wildfire burned a huge part of the Huachuca Mountains and destroyed all the homes up Ash Canyon just a few miles from my house. And the floods that followed took out a lot of other houses and roads.

We've been in a prolonged drought, but when our rain does come, it comes all at once. The ground becomes saturated quickly, and all the rest simply runs off into floods -over highways, done the canyons, and especially over our dirt roads and wipes them out pretty quickly.

And right now the rains, they is a'coming.

So my husband and I tomorrow evening are going to repack our emergency supplies kits, get together stuff to get us through a few days in a shelter, and plan on ways to take care of the animals.

Getting four horses into the back of my little pick-up sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn't it?

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

Human reactions are very strange about certain things.

Why are we scared of thunder, when it can do nothing to hurt us?

Reaction to loud noises seems to be a built-in reaction, at least to judge from an infant's immediate screams when startled by a clamor.

But even as adults, we jump a foot and a half (at least I do) when the thunder crashes over our heads.

And it's even sillier that lightning, despite it's obvious danger, is so beautiful in form - we pour over photographs of it.

We're finally in our monsoon season here in southern Arizona, and as you have probably guessed by now, our afternoon clouds have moved in and are just beginning to drop their load on our mountains.

And I'm jumping.

And also oohing and ahhing.

COSTCO CUSTOMS

There seems to be an elevated courtesy aura at Costcos.

Most grocery stores operate at an elementary school playground mentality. The bigger kids who can run faster are the ones who determine what games get played, and who goes first.

To me, the most insulting practice is refusal to make eye contact. Instead of politely asking if you can get over to the baking soda, people suddenly concentrate their attention, as if their life depended on it, on the bags of whole wheat organic flour that you simply know this overweight, middle-aged man with twelve six-packs of Budweiser in his cart is not the least bit interested in.

However, at the Costco on the west side of Tucson (my closest Costco... three hours away from my home), the polite and gracious responses seem to rise to rise to the level of a high-class social event, complete with a never-ending buffet of drinks and hors d'oeurves at the end of every aisle.

And since everyone is either pushing a massive shopping cart or moving dolly, and there is a real danger of losing personal extremities by an enthusiast customer purchasing an entire living room set of furniture, a wall-mount computer screen, and every sale item in the bakery mistakenly running over your foot, out of necessity, life seems to be taken at a slower pace.

It may also help that I usually shop Monday morning, where the majority of consumers are over the age of 65 and are as likely to be riding a motorized cart as not.

But conversations are easy and open - you pass the same people going to the opposite (read that "wrong") direction on every aisle, and can openly remark, "Did you know there is lite Miracle Whip in 75 lb. containers over by fresh produce?" - you become familiar with the same harried mother with four children under the age of four who is feeding her brood completely by samples of taco sauce, chocolate muffins, and Monster energy drink - you can even have the same employee who was climbing agilely to retrieve a 50-pack of Betty Crocker Super-Duper Brownie Mix for a gentleman in a wheelchair check your receipt and look under your cart for illegal medications, crack cocaine, empty vodka bottles and corn dog sticks.

The only place where tempers rise and personal behavior does revert to adolescent level is at the check-out area.

Suddenly there you become the ENEMY when, with 152 items in your cart, you try to edge into a line with the clear sign "150 ITEMS OR LESS". The scooter with an 85 year old woman steadily plows into your row, and you contemplate whether is is worth sneaking up in back of her and turning off her oxygen tank. And do you dare risk amputation and jump into the metal crash-cart-roller-derby of an new register opening?

The important part today for me was getting up there before the monsoon rain hits, and driving home fast enough that I didn't now have to put tie the tarp over my open truck bed..

(I also made certain I purchased only items that were firmly and completed surrounded by four layers of plastic).