The Critters of Summer

It doesn’t take long for the summer monsoon weather to get to me. It’s hot, it’s muggy, and a million weeds have taken over the front yard. It’s the “muggy” part that I hate most; I really prefer early June, when it’s hotter but the humidity is almost non-existent.

Out the back windows, where last month I saw a river of rainwater sluicing through the yard, there are now tall grasses — like an instant prairie. Where did all that come from? The white-tailed bucks have moved on, and now I have a single doe who grazes through the yard once or twice a day. I haven’t seen any javalinas for months, but the other ruminants are having a fine feast. Cottontails that, earlier this year, managed to squeeze themselves under the garden fence won’t fit through anymore, and that’s a fine thing. They hadn’t managed to get through the hardware cloth around the garden bed, and the buried chicken wire prevented them going under it (although they tried), so that much was a success.

Here’s a hare that would never have fit in or under the fence:

Purple Sage and Honeybees

The summer monsoon started on schedule the first week of July, and it’s been a pretty good monsoon this year. The NWS has my neighborhood marked at 4.88″ of rain over the last two months, and although it’s slowing down some, there may be a couple more storms before it’s finished.

Between showers, the sage bushes put on another good show.

Desert Waterways

Many, if not most, inland cities grew up around some kind of water feature — a lake, a river, maybe a spring or even an ancient well. And in many of those cities, especially in the north, the local water feature freezes up in winter, temporarily disrupting water-bourne transport but providing some ice-related entertainments too. Then after the winter has passed, the city might have a nice local celebration when the ice finally breaks up for the season.

Here in Southern Arizona, our local water features work differently, in that we don’t generally keep water in them.

Out-Take: 8/13/14

Looking for a picture of new growth on the tree, I caught this guy (top left):

Spur-throated Grasshopper (Melanoplus ponderosus)

As Aesop told us, those grasshoppers just love to watch everyone else do work!

Mesquite in Therapy

This tree needs help.

June Wildflowers, Plus Some Roots!

At the end of May (it almost counts as June), I caught a nice angle on the Arizona State Flower growing in the neighbor’s yard:

May Wildflowers

May and June are the harshest time here in the Sonoran desert. The temperature reaches 100° by mid-May and mostly stays there all through June. The days are clear and sunny and dry. Nothing was moving out there during the day, except me and the camera, looking for anything blooming. There wasn’t much to find.

In May, the hesperaloes put up stalks of flowers.