So Green It Hurts!

Soon our colors will be yellows and oranges and an occasional red, followed by the dark greys and browns of late autumn and winter. So: for now celebrate greens so green that it hurts! The world is fast drying out.


This is a small seasonal creek that runs downhill next to Willow Street between Coronado and Gurley. In one spot it flattens out and there the grass greened luxuriously as the monsoon rains came to a grand climax.


Up my hill, there are pieces of granite that grow lush cushions of moss that is green only during the late summer rains.



At the wet beginning of September even the lichens greened up -- on the pinon trunk above and the mountain mahogany stems below.


And it was moist enough that fruiting bodies opened up to spread spores for new lichens.


As I recall, the human eye is at its most sensitive for the color green, perhaps because we are so completely dependent upon growing plants for our survival. Maybe that's the reason rich greens move us so.