Monsoon: The Desert Springs Back to Life: Part III

Summer 2006

Another Monsoon Day

This morning, I am compelled to walk out the old jeep trail behind my house and take some pictures. I’m chronicling the rebirth of the desert in progression and recording the blooms of the monsoon plants for myself. The desert around my house has been transformed into a grassy meadow.

The monsoon here is world renowned for its lightning storms. For my first decades in Tucson there was a consistency. Each evening, a black wall of water would make its way up from Mexico in the southeast. When I was young, my mother would time dessert to it. We would sit and enjoy ice-cream on the front porch watching it come in. As the valley was engulfed and darkened below us, bolts of lightning would begin to dance. Gigantic fingers would cross the sky. Some bolts would stretch across the entire valley for miles with rolling thunder following. Thunder would come in constant volleys.

Since 1989, this is no longer a consistent pattern, but still, thunder will make us jump up in bed, flashes with the immediate explosion of a cannon will send chills up my back. I now sit in Tortolita and watch it fall off of the great Catalina Mountains. Warm rains will pelt us sideways. Glorious rains will have me running outside naked, feeling particularly alive.

I notice that a small wash had been widened and filled with sand from the flow from the rains, making it more accessible. I go for it.

I take the natural trail up about a mile, until I run into a neighbor’s home. The sand is freshly deposited. The receding meanders are virgin to my now bare feet. Only a few smaller feet have tracked before me.

Perhaps made by a tortoise, or perhaps another wild neighbor?

The tracks are apparent.

Snake Track

I discover tadpoles from the Colorado River Toads, which are the ones people suck to extract the hallucinogenic poison. These are the ones that make dogs sick. There are cute little waterfalls, and rocks to lay and sun on. Everywhere, there is the amazing thick vegetation that comes out and covers a seemingly barren drought ridden landscape, when the rains return.

An Early Washout

On the way back, my nose catches a whiff of a large wild animal. It is a cat. The breeze isn’t much. To figure the direction, I use my nude body, which is perspiring in the sun from the extra monsoon humidity. I am able to be aware of wind direction without moving.

I get still and scan and I wait. I have my camera ready, as I stand still, sniffing the air. I don’t want to disturb the nature by flushing it out. Besides, if it isn’t a bobcat, it could be a mountain lion. I don’t want to disturb a mountain lion, they’re big, dangerous and I don’t know enough of their behavior. Sorry, there is no grand climactic ending here. There is no great photo trophy to display. I got tired of standing still sweating, and then a cat, I’m sure, has much more patience than I do.

Late in the Monsoon, we are visited by a rattlesnake. It squirms, still attempting to bite even though its head is missing. Not everything is so comfortable in the richness of the desert.

The iconic Barrel Cactus is the cactus that we are told to cut open when there is no water. It may be one of the worse choices for that. There is a covering of tough spines; the skin is thick and difficult to get through. The obvious shape gives them their name. They have gorgeous blooms. Most people don’t realize that their blooms may vary dramatically, even in just one location.

Everywhere we go, there are more flowers during monsoon.

A Jumping Cholla Flower

My monsoon stories just go to show the advantage of nudity in the wild. We are natural beings and clothing restricts us and our senses, as we are meant to know them. Our awareness is more than visual cues. We are being robbed by our society of our very right to be ourselves. All I can say positive about the social/legal restrictions is that they put us in a stealth hunter/prey type frame of mind at times, as a stealth naturist. We are warriors in nature, too.

One doesn’t associate mushrooms with a desert, especially exploding mushrooms.

Four

As this monsoon season continues, I’ll add more short anecdotes. DF (Desert Flower) and I, also have a more recent photo article to celebrate this season. One day, I’ll publish it, too.

The next post will continue this year’s birthday celebrations. We’ll report on a new place, an easily accessible nature conservation area, that made us feel like a sort of Adam and Eve in Eden.