How Cold Was It? Well when I was a kid...

you sons and daughters of the tundra will doubtless be nonplussed, but last night we had an overnight low temp of 20 degrees.
Now I know that in your world this is a balmy winter days high.
But here in the Great Desert 20 Degrees is all but unheard of!

To add insult to injury,our heater refused to come on this morning.
It has happened a few times previously, but last night was NOT the time for a repeat performance.
And it may be the height of IRONY, but It seems that when it gets cold, the heater doesn’t want to work.
Go figure!
Oh it will eventually decide to come back to life, like that story your mother insists on telling anyone you bring to her house, but not until it gets to a reasonable temp outside.
This is perhaps a flaw of the manufacturers making as these units sit on top of the roof, exposed to all the lovely elements.

perhaps If it was tucked safe and warm inside the house like the heaters in most locations it would be a tad less finicky.
I know that I myself would be more inclined towards functionality if I was warm and cozy in my house.
Heavy sigh.

I am having trouble typing today as it was 60 or so Degrees this morning when I woke up… IN THE HOUSE! This meant temps of low 50’s in my office.
you try walking around on Tile floors at that temp first thing in the morning.

I am sitting here with a coat on, wearing my UUGS and gloves trying to type.
Don’t try this at home, I am a trained unProfessional.

Nasty little buggers!

While I love living in this amazing ecology we have in the Sonoran Desert, it does come with it's share of trade offs.
We are lucky enough to have two Springs each year, well most years anyway; the traditional early in the year everyone has one Spring and the more "Wild Wild West" we don't do things the way everyone else does, later in the summer Spring.

This late spring accompanies the Monsoon season of heavy rains and high temp/humidity that we get between late June and early September each year [see above qualifier. ed.]
This brings out a whole world of green and multi-colored blossoming across the entire landscape.
It also brings one of the least pleasant aspects of living here... CHIGGERS!
Who'da thunk that there would be these nasty little buggers out here in the desert?
I sure didn't think they were here, much to my ankles chagrin!

We have all the requisite desert nasties - Scorpions, snakes - many poisonous, Gila Monsters, Tarantulas and other crawly/bitey things, but you can pretty much SEE all these nasties coming and avoid or enjoy at your discretion.
Not so with the chiggers.
They are too small to see (in spite of what some folks would have you believe) and by the time you realize you have visitors the damage is done, there is nothing you can do but suck it up and live with the annoying painful itch.

Of the scorpions, the worst is the Bark Scorpion!
These damn things love to hang out inside your house - more specifically, in your shoes or under the pillows and blankets of your bed.

One of the learned rituals you pick up fast here is the old Navajo (attribution unknown)sacred shoe tap.
This requires solemnly lifting each shoe and gently tapping the heal on the ground before sliding ones soft bits inside. Failure to appease the shoe gods can be very painful indeed.
Another old Navajo (see pervious note) ritual is the lifting of the pillows toward heaven followed by the traditional blanket shake/lift.
Again, failure to preform these ritually can have dire consequences.
I have been stung twice by Bark Scorpions.

I am not all that sure that I would not prefer to go that route once more than face another chigger attack!
I'm thinking about it...

Another "blessing" we get here is an insidious little thing that is all but impossible to do anything about.
it comes "on the wind" from the agricultural history of the state.
When the fields are furrowed they release little spores of fungus that have a fondness for human lungs.
It has a very catchy name - COCCIDIOIDOMYCOSIS - isn't that catchy?
Sort of just rolls of the tongue doesn't it...
Actually, that is of course the Latin name, however to the best of knowledge it has infected very few Latins to date.

The rest of us just call it "Valley Fever."

This little nasty can lodge (makes it sound like it should be paying rent) in your lungs and lay dormant for years before some unknown trigger, likely something to do with leprechauns and secret handshakes, causes the thing to mutate into a full blown infectious disease that can in extreme cases mutate into such Uber nasties as TB, or Meningitis!

Most people who get it will walk around thinking they may have a cold or the flu.
Others will display more Acute Bronchitis or Pneumonia like symptoms.
Others like myself with compromised immune systems can be in real trouble.
It took the doctors nearly 5 weeks to diagnose me as having Valley Fever!
The protocol for dealing with it is to let people suffer for 4 or 5 months before treating it with an Anti-Fungal drug.
Lovely!

My first 4.5 weeks were pure hell.
But the last few days has been much more ... enjoyable (?) due to the Drugs they do have me taking.
The prescribed drugs for helping people deal with the symptoms are OPIATES!
These can be most interesting indeed.
They tend to put most people to sleep, but as I am really an Alien they keep me up all night.
It should be an interesting couple of weeks while I get over the significant symptoms of the Valley Fever.
In the mean time... gee, those lizards are really pretty... what species is it again with all the rainbow colors on it?

See-thru Cactus

As the drought continues here, the plants are starting to suffer significant stress.
the Palo Verde trees are sacrificing branches to protect themselves, a rather unique survival adaptation to the lack of water here in the Sonoran desert.
The columnar Cactus have shriveled and shrunk to an alarming degree.
Perhaps worse that the others, the Pancake (prickly pear/paddle) cactus have sunken so much that they are nearly transparent. it has gotten to the point that you can almost read a book through the paddles.

damn, we need some rain here muy pronto!

100 squared

Well, it is that time of year again when we enter what we lovingly refer to as the "100 days of 100"... degrees, that is.
The triple digit temps will hang around for the next 5 months, which can seem a lifetime to those not used to the heat.
There are other places with high heat indexes as well, but what makes it so interesting (read horrorifying) here it the single digit Humidity.
You all know the old chestnut... "it's a dry heat"... which sounds wonderful till you think about it in real trems.
it's like saying the "dry heaves" are better than those other porcelain hugging versions. NOT!

We, or rather I , do miss the moisture this time of year.
The Monsoons seem so far away that they may never actually reach here, not with you still among the living anyway.
We do get a sort of simulated rain which should be here in a few weeks. This is not as plesent as it sounds either.

What we get is rain-like sounds while driving around town.

Neat, I hear you say... not so grasshopper.
What you hear is the asphalt liquifying beneeth your wheels!
Ever so much fun to clean off the car later.

but what the heck, it ia a close to water as we get out here, and we are thankful for it!