What's Up?

 

Blogging has been difficult for me lately and mostly I don't know why. I have not been active outside and that might be part of it. I also don't know what we did in May other than get Ranch Boss an appointment to get his cataract removed in June. 

 

Nature was our sanctuary (and A/C) for what can be difficult months in Tucson-- humid and hot as we wait for the storms. We got one good one on our property with 3/4" of rain in 20 minutes. Nothing since as the storms pass us by. Where it comes to nature, it's especially wonderful to see the babies born and grow up.

 

For me, I've been dealing with first tinnitus (I'd never had it before) and then Menieres Disease (also ear related). I found an answer for the tinnitus with Lipo Flavonoid, but the other is more complicated and adds dizziness and sometimes nausea to the ear buzz. What's to write about when it comes to negative things like that.

 

June began with a bout of either food poisoning or a summer flu. Whatever it was, it laid me flat for over a week (it was not Covid, based on no fever or cough). I lost some weight, which I doubtless put back on once I began eating again. I've known those with Menieres and theirs  usually went away, after many months, which I am hoping happens as it is limiting with no idea when the dizziness will be a problem.

 

Ranch Boss' eye surgery went well so far anyway. It though meant no trip to Oregon for now. He had to make long distance arrangements for the  work he'd have done like getting in the winter hay. If we get the monsoon season  they are promising, September might be the soonest we can go. How expensive will diesel be by then???

 

So, I thought I'd put some photos here from May and June since they are the only good news that I can put out since words aren't so great and politics??? not sure who thinks there is good news there...

I hope some of you will comment (if I have readers left lol); so I can learn how you are doing if you don't have a blog (I did read blogs whenever I felt good enough to do so). As for my books, nada on them but I hope to get back to it. We have been playing with book covers. As you can imagine, with no new books coming out or advertising to speak of, not many readers there either :)

August

by Rain Trueax

I went online Thursday morning with no idea what to write about for Saturday's blog. My head was spinning with ideas-- so many of them negative. I like to be positive, but how is that possible when my nation is so divided filled with people who see what should be done diametrically opposed to each other. Soon they will be voting, me too, and it could send the country spiraling in a totally different direction where it comes to taxes (try a 39+% capital gains tax); environment; packing the Supreme Court; Green New Deal and how much fuel we can use: immigration; adding new states; legal system; ending the Electoral College; no more filibuster; etc. etc. Or we might be staying the course (which some see as the road to hell) and finding more rioting in the streets because it didn't turn out right... or rather left.

It's not enough these days to disagree on what is right to do or for whom to vote, the one

voting wrong must also be condemned.

Of course, then there was the explosion in Beirut. More upset. The newspaper was full of it, but since you also likely read papers, no need for me to repeat it all here. Just more heartbreak.

When I got to Blogger-- things had changed. After hearing about it for over a month, I now had the new version. Like so many have said, I don't like it as well. It seems awkward; and so far I haven't been able to find all I want, but it should be manageable... Maybe. I guess we can go back to the original but not sure for how long. I wonder why computer gurus want to change things in a time where there is already so much chaos...

So instead of trying to pretend all is hunky-dory, I figured I'd go with the standby-- the desert. The barrel cactus were not planted by us. They could be natural or planted by a former owner. They aren't attracting the bees like the saguaro blossoms did, but their fruit is loved by the javelina and rodents.

The Texas Ranger (many photos below) is our contribution to bring xeriscape plantings around the pool and house, leaving the rest of our land natural to the desert terrain in which it sets.The bees love it. We aren't sure where the hive is but any bees in Tucson are the ones called killer bees. They don't seem that aggressive so far...

As far as monsoon storms go, which I had been looking forward to being here to experience, they haven't happened much. Rain in early June was good; but since then it's been mostly sprinkles. The storms I used to watch march north up the valley have clung more to the mountain behind us. Rains have been heavy in a few places but not here. There have been some beautiful clouds sail by, but they saved their moisture for elsewhere.

Monsoons and some more politics...

by Rain Trueax

The monsoon season started in early June but then disappeared until this week when it returned with the thunder, lightning, and sporadic rains. We got a good rain from one of the storms, but the one with the most lightning only gave us a little. Both had come at night. One brought strong winds but worse other places than here as in knocked out power for 600+ homes. That's a concern when the temps are over 105ºF and why we have a small generator and a room a/c unit. Knowing such things happen when you live on a farm tends  to make you be prepared.  The room a/c wouldn't do much for the whole house but would let us sleep at night :).

What I love about these storms is their energy. It's nice when they come with heavy rains but then desert dwellers know they have to be wary of the roads that dip into washes. Regularly people drown in such storms. I used one in my contemporary romance, Desert Inferno, as a threat to the hero and heroine as they were on foot in the desert wilderness. 

Here's what you can run into with these 'dry' washes in the monsoon season. Cañada del Oro Wash. It is worse this year after the horrific fire.

Ahead some political (maybe that's what it is or is it cultural???); so fair warning  

Tucson Skies

One of the things I love when in Tucson is watching the skies. There are many days of no clouds, of course, where the sun dominates land and sky, but often there are spectacular cloud combinations that sail past from other places, sometimes dropping rain (as they did while I was here this trip), sometimes providing a thunderstorm (we got a bit of that too), and often providing a sky full of drama.

All of these photos were taken from our desert house. We are fortunate here to look toward Pusch Ridge out the back and the Tucson Mountains out the front.

I have always enjoyed desert skies, from the first time I came to Tucson in 1965, but having the blog adds to the pleasure as a place to share them with others. I am reminded to do this by the blog of my friend Sylvia, who frequently posts beautiful sky photos from the Seattle area-- Sylvia from over the Hill

A thunderstorm

Yesterday, on the farm, was hot and sultry. Such days in August and even September are not unheard of, but they are not the norm. If they were, this house would have air conditioning. Generally the creek cools the bedroom off enough at night that sleeping is not a problem

This last week, that wasn't how it worked. There had been virtually no breeze, and the heat was intense. Fortunately the farm's irrigation lines are up and working (when they get moved by somebody), or the pastures would be completely dried up.

Because of the heat, I keep an eye out for promising sunsets especially if the clouds are right. Last night the sunset wasn't so spectacular in terms of color. Beautiful where it was but it didn't cover the whole western sky, but there was something very interesting in the cloud formations, kind of a streaking through them that made it different. Perhaps it was an omen for what was coming.

About 12:30 AM, I woke to the crash of thunder and then the flash of the lightning against my closed eyelids. I have been in a lot of thunderstorms but mainly because of growing up in the Columbia River Gorge and traveling. In Tucson, come July, the monsoons kick in and the extravagant, showy storms follow. That house is well situated to pour a glass of wine, open up all of the doors, and sit on the living room sofa to watch the show.

Here at the farm I sometimes will hear storms move up the main Willamette Valley but they are generally farther away. If overhead, they have been short-lived and inner cloud. Last night was different. I heard one of the calves low, the sheep complain, and more rapid flash to crash and decided to get up to watch. Two of the cats were in hiding, but the young black one was as excited as me and raced between screen doors and windows.

Some of my concern was whether fire would go with the lightning that was definitely hitting the ground, but a rain came along and most likely any fires would have been quickly doused. I would guess it lasted less than an hour, but it seemed to be right overhead half that time as there was little time between bolt and thundering crash. I saw one really thick bolt hit the ground directly to the west, no side shoots and straight down-- well as straight as lightning ever gets.

The flashes would brighten the pasture as I watched the cattle move across it heading toward the south, but not in a panic, just that herd way of movement. Mostly the calves were the ones making complaining sounds. The sheep stayed in the barn which the cattle would have been wise to do, but something in their instincts told them to be out there. It's not like they could not be hit. The bolts seemed to be going to all the higher hills around us but it's not as though lightning follows rules. Perhaps they felt it was best to be away from the creek which would mean heading toward the south part of the pasture, under the rim of the road with higher forest above. Since they haven't seen a storm like this before, I have no idea if primal instincts governed their movement-- or just general edginess.

Between crashes, I also heard the wild turkeys gobbling to the east, the coyotes yodeled up the valley. No animal likes lightning much, and I don't blame them because if I was out in it, I'd not have been as impressed either. The instinctive thing for a human would be to get under a tree, but I have seen trees after they have been split apart by the bolts, heard the stories of those killed who sought shelter when it wasn't.

If I am ever out in a storm hiking, with no choice to get out of it, I would do what is now recommended, squat down low as possible and hold that pose until the storm passes. It wouldn't be easy to do or comfortable, but they say lying down leaves more body to travel through if the lightning hits the ground nearby. There are no rules for where lightning will hit although getting off any high ridge would seem to be smart. Thunderstorms come up so fast that it's not always possible to do anything other than experience what is going to be.

I would love to photograph lightning. In Tucson I have taken a lot of photos of storm clouds but haven't gotten the knack of having my camera set and knowing when to click. Last night I didn't even try. I just let the energy of the storm soak in much as the heavy rain soaked the ground. This morning I am enjoying the smell of the ground after that kind of rain.

These photos are a few from that sunset before the storm.

Floods

Living on a creek has a lot of wonderful advantages with the summer beauty, the potential to irrigate pastures, all the birds and animals it supports, but it also has its moments, as with the Northwest's recent severe storm, where one wonders exactly how high the water is going to rise.

In the nearly 30 years, I have lived here, it has never come closer to the house than the edge of our driveway. One particularly bad year, we drove into the nearby town where they were giving out sand for filling bags. We brought home enough sand to fill some bags, formed our little bulwark against the rising water, saw the water come to the edge of them but then recede. (By the way, disposing of sandbags after they are no longer needed isn't the easiest thing in the world.)

In this flood, although the creek went over its banks, and the rain poured down, it didn't threaten the barn or house. Since we fence the livestock away from it, we didn't have to worry much about animals drowning; although with two new calves, I worried a little anyway.

For a little while, this creek became more a river than a creek. The rising water did some damage in knocking down trees, forming natural dams that can potentially become a future problem, and eroded a few banks. The beaver have been contributing to the downing of trees. Too many beaver can denude a creek bank as much as too many cows. Our beaver are bank beaver, don't build dams in the creek, but they still gnaw down trees.

These pictures are when the water had gone down some. The day it was the worst, pictures were out of the question, not only because of the high wind, but the sky was so dark that my camera thought it had to be dusk. It kept demanding a flash which didn't do much for illuminating anything in the distance.

The storm sounded fearsome. I never like high wind, but we didn't get the brunt of it. The farm lost no trees from the yard, no buildings, and only had power out for an hour one night. Some not far away are still without power. I love living along a creek. Value it highly, but it's not without some problems.

Pineapple Express

The name Pineapple Express conjours up warmth, tropics, beauty, good taste, like maybe a type of yogurt. What the phenomena actually means when it hits the Northwest is lots of rain and unusually warm temperatures. The storms, on a weather map, show a solid white streak from Hawaii right to our shores as one storm after another arrives to dump its load.

If there had been much snow in the mountains, which there wasn't, it would be melting. Down here in the valley, daytime highs are running close to 70. This year, as it has before, the express arrived after a prolonged dry spell.

The storms come with lots of wind which is right now blowing the last leaves off the oak trees. Oh yeah, and remember all that rain we were saying we needed earlier? It has come with the storms. Should we have been more specific in saying that we didn't want it all in one load? However, with this warmth, it will cause the grass in the pasture to grow which we could use.

So here are pictures of the creek over its banks and the farm denizens. Nothing is very pretty and could as well have been described by a few words-- mud, lots of mud, mud everywhere-- at least wherever there aren't puddles.

My assortment of felt hats are being put to use (I have a thing for that kind of hat). I let one drip itself dry while the next one gets pulled out. Also I had to dig deep in the utility room to find my Muck boots. Even with them, it can be interesting crossing the barnyard. Fortunately I don't have to do that today-- the sheep got kept in-- not that they were pleased.

The hat in this picture is my current favorite. Partly because when I knock apples out of the tree for this cow (she's in to be treated for an eye problem), if one hits my toughest hat, I barely notice it!

As you can tell from this photo, the cow expectantly waits right near the tree, until a good wind or I come out to knock her down some treats.