desert rain

Rain has come to the desert ...

BIG rain.  Arizona's summer monsoon.

The rains have been hitting the rim -- which is to say the Colorado Plateau -- for a week or so, but they hadn't made it past the wall of heat in Sedona and Phoenix until now.

Yesterday we had storm after storm blowing through this valley, bringing splendidly chilly air and filling the dry wash behind our casita.

I can't say the animals were happy.  They're absolutely terrified of thunder, and they followed me so closely all day that I kept tripping over them! Poor Isis wouldn't even leave my side when I went out in the rain to take photos of the wash or to go for a walk. But me? I was in heaven.

The most beautiful, sensual part about desert rains in the aroma.  In Phoenix it smells of creosote bush; it's an acrid, musky smell when you first encounter it, but it works its way into your soul once you've lived in the low desert.  In Taos, there's an enchanting perfume of sagebrush. Here in Sedona, it's the ancient, resinous aromas of juniper and pinon pine.

(there's Isis, by the way, saying "can't we go home and get out of the rain?!")

It had been blazingly sunny and in the low 100s here where we're staying -- rather unpleasant since we only have a swamp cooler on the house.  But right now, sitting on the front porch, it's a lovely 69 degrees. The crickets are chirping. The little toads are hopping about in the driveway. 

The rains have thankfully broken the heat. And they've cooled my head and helped me think, so that I think I've finally broken the back of this dissertation chapter I've been agonizing over.  You might say it's been a watershed weekend, ha ha