Strawberry pot 'shrooms

It's official. Our world this summer is a lot wetter than last year at this time. According to an article in the Arizona Republic, Flagstaff has enjoyed 1.74" of rain since the official start of the monsoon season June 15 and we in Prescott have had 1.55". During the same period last year, it measured zilch. Zero. Nada. Furthermore, in the higher country this year, the snow pack lasted into March in places.

This may not sound like much to folk in wetter climes, but in the dry southwest, months with over 1" of rain are wet and welcome. All of which might explain the picture above. One morning last week, I saw little mushrooms cropping up in the cups of my aged strawberry pot. That's never happened in all the years that I've had this big planter.

By the next day, the little umbrellas had opened up and two days after their appearance, the 'shrooms were melting down, as many do. Coincidentally, the dotter displayed a fine batch of Alaskan mushroom pictures yesterday.

A local friend who is an old-timer in these parts once explained to me about the early monsoon superstition; viz., if the rains come too soon, the season will accordingly be a short one. I hope that science (and a long rainy season) prevail over the old wives and their tales!

X-Files Goodness!! Coming to a theater near you July 25, says the website for the new Mulder-Scully movie. The trailer here, and news about an on-line premier event July 23 here.

Rainy day pictures

Our summer rains are here, posing a problem for the stroller, as well as for those wonderful Prescott outdoor events such as the Indian Art Fair at the Sharlot Hall Museum grounds today. I didn't go. Instead, I explored my own outback with the camera. Example: rain drops in a puddle. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, 1) I was able to zoom in on the water while comfortably sheltered on my outdoor staircase landing and 2) I tried out the sports setting on the camera shutter to take a sequence of exposures rapidly (for a digicam) in hopes that I would get at least one shot like that above. It worked!

With water, water everywhere, no problem catching a drop or two on a fat succulent leaf.

Of course, this is also the time of year that Arizona woodlands grow a fast crop of mushrooms. The pretty red above was brought to me by a neighbor.

My old weathered landscaping wood is home to a few fungi, as well.

However, up the hill in the shade is a fallen log that is host to an absolute swarm of mushrooms. Reason enough to be sure you always have a fallen log somewhere in your yard.

A rainy day is also a good time to compare stumps. Above, a pine log, which has shrunk a lot more than its bark, which will peel off one of these days quite soon, I would guess. The oak below grows more slowly and must contain a lot less moisture, as it doesn't seem to shrink like the pine, nor does the bark show any inclination to peel. Another difference I noted is that the oak has a distinctive heartwood center, while the pine wood looks to be more uniform.

A good day for flower close-ups, too. The gallardia above is a composite, meaning that the real flowers are concentrated in the center, surrounded the pollen-coated pistils. As for the poppy pod below, it took the close-up photo te reveal just how hairy a plant it is! The poppy is a welcome surprise from a scattering of seeds I made a couple of years ago; this is the first time that plants have emerged.

And this is a small, insignificant local penstemon with a lovely collection of little lavender blossoms that begs for a macro setting. I've seen the little linarea-leaf penstemon in many sunny locations, mixed in with the grasses and other low growing plants.

No rainy day post would be complete without a critter picture! We've had a fair number of raven familial to-dos in the past week; for example, the #1 bird filled his/her beak in the neighbor's gutter and #2, an adolescent who still expects to be fed by the old folks, was shouting.

Our monsoon season even brings the occasional rainbow. This fragment caught my attention, especially with those strange dark diagonal streaks. Tomorrow? A political Bar-B-Q. I'm sure we'll be in a ramada ... just in case.

Rainy Day Pictures

Even if I lived in rain country, I think I would try to catch the essence of a rain storm. This morning our rain turned to hail briefly, hence the "rain" streaks in some photos.

The mountain mahogany captures rain drops and holds them briefly.

Not a day of harsh Arizona sun contrasts!

And the water starts heading downhill for the sea. But we'll collect it instead behind a dam.

Water, Real Water, Falling from the Sky!

You may think it's strange for people to react so viscerally to a couple of storms. On the other hand, take a look (above) at Granite Creek. Dry as a bone on this past, hot Sunday when I took the picture; think of that old cowboy song, Cool Water. Compare with the view through the neighborhood pines today. See what I mean?

Here's today's rain, running down the street to join a rushing stream at the corner. No question that Granite Creek was filling fast.

The oak stems were wet from today's rain; the juniper held lovely drops of water.

Our mountain world begins to change drastically once the rains arrive. Good examples sent over by my neighbor -- an entire ant colony washed out from under the driveway concrete and ready to fly away... and a new crop of mushrooms in a patch of lawn.

Up my hill, a couple of mossy stones have started greening up -- and the ground was wet enough to catch a stranger's paw prints. Possibly a skunk or badger.

Another result of the change in the weather: the air now holds enough moisture to condense out generously on my cold bottle of water. Thus a new way for Max cat to quench his thirst without visiting his water dish. The pink arc is his tongue.

The Rain Rolled In -- Finally

See that lovely "L" (for low pressure) hovering over the Colorado River? See that luscious green blob over the center of Arizona? It's been there since about 3:30 this afternoon; it is now 10:30 p.m. and we have had rain off and on for 7 hours. There was a thunderclap just now, off in the Bradshaws. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Big Heat is over and we can enjoy our summer mountain rains, up from Baja. Two more days of this sort of weather, the hills will green up. Keep your fingers crossed!

Note: A poetic treatment of the my glass tag has been posted by Lucy; do take a look.

Mormon Lake Remembered

The heat we're suffering this week makes me think longingly of the really high country. For instance, I recall that when I was a very young child, I spent time at Mormon Lake. In the late 20s and early 30s, my Phoenix grandparents owned a summer cottage up there at a cool 7000 ft. This painting of it by my late Aunt Blanche inspired me to ask The Google for other early pictures of the Mormon Lake settlement. None of those vacation cabins below look nearly as inviting as my aunt's pictures!

What do I recall of that time? The tall pine trees, soughing in the wind. The seemingly random railroad tracks one came across in the forest, which was being logged back in those days. There was the "little house" out back, my name for the privvy. And, most wonderful of all, the family --grandparents, aunts & uncles & parents -- went raspberry picking. To me at that age, the plants were frighteningly tall. Thorny, too, like proper wild berry plants. Grandma baked several wonderful pies. Oh, yes, the mountain blue jays -- a beautiful midnight blue!

Mormon Lake is the largest natural lake in Arizona, but it might well be dry this year. Though it covers 12 square miles in wet years, the lake is a shallow 10 ft. deep. So enough of the wist! Besides, I am not doing too well at higher elevations these days; the sins of my youth are catching up with me! Time to recall that the 4th of July week is always a hot one, but this morning the sky looked like the moist air is beginning to stream in -- the Arizona monsoon is almost upon us. Wonderful for the mountains, miserable for desert dwellers whose dry heat turns to a bit of a steam bath.

Prescott PMS Blues

The tease begins. First there is a wee puff above the ridges -- like yesterday. Nothing worth noting except that it is.

Now, today, the weather gods are making it look a lot better. Hah. This is the time that should be called mountain PMS. Short for Pre-Monsoon Swelter. Or maybe, considering the nasty fire up north of here, Pre- Monsoon Stress -- counting the days before the rains come, hoping that we won't see any flames in the meantime.

I always thought that clouds -- especially storm clouds -- came from somewhere. Until Prescott. Here in the summer, I will watch the clouds build up over the mountains until it finally is time to break loose and rain.

Curious -- when I was a child in Arizona, nobody -- but nobody -- talked about monsoons. Monsoons happened in India and W. Somerset Maugham wrote novels about them and Hollywood made movies with Tyrone Power in a white headdress and Maria Ouspenskya with a pearl in her nose! Maybe it rained more in the late summer in Arizona, but that was about it. (I do recall how wonderful the desert smelled after one of those summer rains.)

Today, what with the Weather Channel and satellites, we are sophisticates. We know all about the shift in wind direction and weather patterns galore. I make a note of the low sitting over the Colorado River and the high settling in over 4-Corners and know that the rains are due any day. I check to see if the rains are happening yet in New Mexico -- they seem to precede ours by a couple of weeks.

And yet there is other, more folkish weather lore. For instance, the official local prediction is to expect a chintzy Monsoon season, with a minimum of moisture. However -- I have a brother in Perth Australia, at the End of the World. It's winter there, the rainy season, just like California. My experience has been that when Bill gets good winter rains, we have light Monsoon rains. And vicey-versa. Last night, he called. Their winter is dry, thus far. So maybe, just maybe...

Now, my friend Linda, an old-timer locally, cites the old wives' wisdom to warn that if the Monsoon comes early, then it is destined to be short and sweet. (No, I don't know just when "early" is...you know how old wives are.)

In the meantime, we wait, it gets hotter and the clouds build up a little bit more each day, the lightning and the thunder begin, and finally we get those wonderful big plops of water. We earn them by suffering through PMS.

If you have a better S than "swelter" or "stress", do let me know!