We're in the midst of a pretty decent monsoon season here in Tucson. In Tucson the monsoon season starts sometime in June (early) or July, when we have 3 consecutive days when the dew point averages 54 or more. I don't know exactly when this monsoon season started, but I do know that we had more rain than ever before on Saturday, July 29. To wit:
There's DH, Jack, and Cassie on the east patio while I snap their photo from the west patio.
The land behind our house enjoys a slight incline, and as the rain continued to pour down we experienced quite a raging current in the wash beyond the wall. Usually the ground is dry enough to absorb the water from any storm the monsoons deliver, but we've had a spat of storms over the past week that have saturated the ground, allowing the wash beyond the wall to channel the runoff to the larger creek (dry all but 3 or so days a year) to the east. Cassie didn't know what to make of the churning rapids (impossible to photograph) so she ran from one end of our morassed backyard to the other, trying to make sense of the weather.
The sand beneath the swing set reached saturation, too, enabling the Mother of All Streams to flow off to the eucalyptus back there. (Jack and Evan like to arrange their Star Wars Galactic Heroes in various scenarios back there in the sandbox, then run the hose to create a stream. I always let them, cause I figure it's one of the only ways the eucalyptus is going to get any water.)
Here's the scene under the eaves, where we keep a plumbago and where I'm storing an ocotillo until DH plants it in the floodplain beyond the wall. The soil in the ocotillo pot is about 10 inches from the rim of the pot, so all that's water. In the desert. Ain't it glorious?
(extreme close up)
There's DH, Jack, and Cassie on the east patio while I snap their photo from the west patio.
The land behind our house enjoys a slight incline, and as the rain continued to pour down we experienced quite a raging current in the wash beyond the wall. Usually the ground is dry enough to absorb the water from any storm the monsoons deliver, but we've had a spat of storms over the past week that have saturated the ground, allowing the wash beyond the wall to channel the runoff to the larger creek (dry all but 3 or so days a year) to the east. Cassie didn't know what to make of the churning rapids (impossible to photograph) so she ran from one end of our morassed backyard to the other, trying to make sense of the weather.
The sand beneath the swing set reached saturation, too, enabling the Mother of All Streams to flow off to the eucalyptus back there. (Jack and Evan like to arrange their Star Wars Galactic Heroes in various scenarios back there in the sandbox, then run the hose to create a stream. I always let them, cause I figure it's one of the only ways the eucalyptus is going to get any water.)
Here's the scene under the eaves, where we keep a plumbago and where I'm storing an ocotillo until DH plants it in the floodplain beyond the wall. The soil in the ocotillo pot is about 10 inches from the rim of the pot, so all that's water. In the desert. Ain't it glorious?
(extreme close up)
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