Creosote celebrates the rain

Thoughts from J. Bockman

This is the season where each morning is so clear and nice you wish you could just stay home and do domestic-y things like yard work all day long. You put it on the list for the weekend or maybe even for right after work, because now daylight lasts past dinnertime. Of course, by the weekend, or the end of the day, it's hot and icky. Not sweltering, that's a month or so off, but the kind of hot where opening your car door reminds you of your oven. Yard work sounds like, well, work.

This is the season where you watch things grow, and wilt. Unless you are a very conscientious gardener who waters every day. I am not. I over water or I forget to water. No doubt one reason I favor drought-tolerant plants, and desert neighborhoods. I don't have to go far to watch plants morph from weeds into wildflowers into wildfire bait, all within a three month period. Things aren't dead -- the birds are still foraging, seeds must be growing -- but in this not-spring, not-summer season, everything (not just my plants) is a little crackly, and often dusty.

And then there's days like today.

It's raining. It won't rain for long. In fact, it quit as I've been typing this. But it rained enough. The wilting plants are saying hallelujah, and so are the people who are out doing yard work. It rained enough to leave the air cool even if the clouds go away, and more than enough to leave that wonderful smell the desert gets. That amazing woody smell, the scent of things growing and reaching out to catch the raindrops. It's the creosote bush, celebrating on behalf of the desert.

Now's the time to do the outdoor stuff, right now while you can smell the creosote. It's one of the wonders of the desert.