Funny thing about that summer heat...

It is hard not to think or talk about the heat.  It lays heavy on the sand, thick and palpable.  I spend at least some time every day working outside.  I try to do it in the morning, but that is not always possible. I was out until 11 am this morning creeping up and down sand dunes looking for the fringe-toed lizard.  It was well over 100 degrees.  And yet, the funny thing is that the heat is the life blood, the heart, the essence of life out here.  Some critters don't even show themselves until the days get hot enough.  Take the desert iguana:  a cool critter that thrives in the heat.  It wakes up after the other reptiles and goes to sleep earlier in the fall. I don't even see a lizard running until ater 9 am when the sun really starts heating up the dunes.

So many other things wake up in the heat.  It is very cool to watch the movement of the seasons across the dunes.  The sand treader crickets wake up earlier in the spring when the sun is warm but not yet baking.  Then they dive into their sandy dens to wait out the summer heat.  They come out a bit in the darkness of the summer night. This morning I watched for my first lizard to see when things were starting to wake up.  Then all of a sudden there are tracks dancing all over the white expanse of sand.

The as the day progresses everything takes a siesta as the sun reaches zenith and the heat reaches its own zenith.  Not until the shadows grow long do things start to move about again.

As the shadows lengthened today I was out at the oasis.  While I was working I heard the call of a juvenile great-horned owl calling to its parents.  The sun had not yet set, but they were all bustling about in the palms What a delight.  What beauty.

I look forward (greatly) to the movement into fall, but I delight in the action of the desert summer.

Great horned owl juvenile

It's too darn hot!!

Okay, now it is hot.  Over 110 this week, maybe up to 116.  I wonder if the incidence of crimes of passion go up with the heat?  I know it can make me cranky and irritable.  I know it is getting hot when I have a bout of near-dehydration...even though I am drinking a lot!!

Desert tortoise feasting on forbs.

This kind of heat stops most activity. My tortoises are mostly underground...I only see them every few days.  Now they know how to deal with this: estivate!!! We have our air conditioners and coolers, malls and swimming pools.  I was thinking, though:  I remember when we had only what my friend calls desert coolers, and no air in the car.  Even 10 years ago I remember trying to stay cool in my apartment without air.  We did it then. Now we seem to think that there is no life in the desert without air conditioning and swimming pools.

My air conditioning went out in my car a few years ago.  My friends were flabbergasted when I opted to wait for a couple years before buying a new car or repairing my AC, and live through the summer without.  Well, we never used to have them. Pretty strange how a matter of a few years can disappear the reality of an earlier time.  And we are not talking the "olden days!!!"

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate my AC, but I have only had it for the last 4 1/2 years.  I just think we need to remember where we have come from so we can truly appreciate what we have.  Only then can we appreciate the cost.

Summer Rain

Woke up this morning to the scent of summer rain.  If water can smell hot, then summer rains here smell hot. The pungent scent of the creosote and the wet leaves of the desert willow, in tandem with the air thick with water and the sky painted up with clouds make for a scent as thick as honey and as heady. The moisture in the air sucks the brilliance out of the sky: the haze cuts the desert asure blue.

Today is a lazy day.  It is the Fourth of July.  Should be a great celebration of our Nation's independence.  Like so many holidays, it is lost in the soup of material madness. Yes, I enjoy the fireworks, although not under my window at 3 am.  And I do appreciate this country, having seen a bit of others. So yes, I am cynical about it all, but I love having a lazy day to smell the rain, read, drink my morning joe at leisure and think about my life.

I think about what my parents are leaving for us and what my generation is leaving for our children.  Hmmm. I think about how much firecrackers scare my dog and keep me awake, and yet how fun to watch them burn -- there is a little pyromaniac in all of us.  I can smell the neighborhood bbqs, although I am not participating in that particular ritual, but the smell is tantalizing, and my dog keeps putting her nose to the wind and tasting it. No, we shall close the doors, and she will huddle and shake as the fireworks go off and I will comfort her and drink sweet tea and read a good book.  And appreciate my life.

Early summer

This is the hopeful part of summer. Today the temps hit 109.  Not bad, really.  At least that is what is seems like in the early summer.  Right now the heat is on, but it is still pretty new. So the temps are expected to run from 105 -110 this week. So in this way we shall melt right into July.  Ahhh...new summer is much more agreeable than old summer. The long days linger still, with sultry breezes sloughing through the summer/cricket nights.  We are awash in sumptuous summer fruits: cherries peaches and apricots.  Our barbecues are on and the pools are full.  And meanwhile the critters come out to play now, too.  Lizards abound on the dunes and the rocks.  Snakes slither and foxes slink, owls hoot and nighthawks glide.

Yes, early summer is good.  Before the lingering heat begins to sap energy and dampen spirits.

Old trail through the palms.

luminous landscape


languid moon
mossy stone
sultry june
palms moan

torpid nights
sizzling sun
hazy lights
lizards run

windy dune
rustling trees
stifling noon
buzzing bees

owls hoot
bats twitter
seeds root
wind litters

Summer Solstice

Spring slides into summer...early.  Summer heat came early this year, and hot summer skies reflect my thoughts back to me. Real reflection is inward looking:  look deep inside and we don't always like what we see.  I guess we are all part fuzzy bunny and part wild beast:  it is just so hard to admit to the wild beast.

Once a year the sun reaches the furthest north in the sky that it will go.  In the north pole, eternal day light reigns.  The day stretches on and on, the sunlight glaring metallic across the sky.  The sun pales the palette of desert colors -- purples, blues, browns and reds -- into a brassy reflection of the colors of spring. The sunlight is to bright, too yellow, too hot.

Midsummer is not really midsummer, but the beginning of summer. Funny how the richest part of the year -- filled with peaches and corn, sun ripe tomatoes and summer squash -- begins as the year starts the process of winding down. The days start to diminish, one second at a time.

Summer brings a time of deep reflection. Perhaps in colder climes, winter is that time.  It is a time of withdrawing, of contemplation, of inner cleaning and inner work. Summer in the desert brings estivation, a sluggish summer sleep: time to think, not to act. It is just to hot to act.

I was reminiscing with a friend tonight.  We are in the midsummer of our lives, and our lives are so rich and full.  If you had asked either of us ten or twenty years ago where we would be now, we could never have guessed that we would end up where we are. The twists and turns of life rock us, roll us and tumble us in the cosmic polishing machine!!! I am lucky and I am happy.  I am happy in the summer of my life!!  Maybe that just comes from accepting what life has thrown at me.

Hot summer skies over Californi fan palm oasis.

summer

summer days
hot sun blinds and rages on
hot sap
rises up early then is gone

summer nights
eclipse follows gibbous moon
hot wind
sloughing over silky dune