“This is the best part. The best part of anything really. It’s the moment before it starts.”
- From the film We Are Your Friends.
It is inevitably the cusp of that season again - the hot one - in the desert. The window is creaking shut this year, not the usual abrupt slam. The last hurrah of wildflowers born in the cooler months are asking away at pollinators to complete their annual work before it is too late, and all becomes subject to the inferno. It is time to start heading for higher ground, where the cooler days and nights are steadily not so, though are comparatively still to the simmering valley floors.
In terms of updates since I’ve been in town, I’ll start with an exciting one: the sheer amount of wildlife I’ve been blessed to encounter. It all started with an offer by an Inn staffer to have a California Spiny lizard released in my home for the express purpose of managing various critters that inevitably found their way through the unsealed portions of the walls. I named this new, albeit temporary, addition Chuck.
Since introducing water and care to the yard out front, I’ve observed the moving in of wildlife, and of course, green shoots of grass and awakening shrubs and one tree. Of note are the numerous Cottontails, Hares, a Gopher snake, and Geckoes. The herbivores, I must assume, are thankful for the additional food source and pay no mind to my residence otherwise.
Rylie is thriving here about as much, if not more so, than I. That dog, while small in stature, is a desert pup if I’ve ever known one. She runs through the mesquite like she’s on a viable mission, thrashing after the latest bird in question. While I’m at the office working on a new email blast, Rue is sunbathing and rebelliously shoving her head in Gopher holes. In the evenings we go for a stroll around town, by the campground and the wetlands, or in back of the house through the hills formed by deposits of ancient lakebed sediments. This all used to be underwater, you know.
Yeah, I think this move is going to turn out just fine. At least it’s a better fit than the last one (I need me some blue skies and sunshine, ya hear). Unlike Alaska, however, this neck of the highly metaphorical woods bleeds out in the summertime. The area is steadily going silent as the snowbirds leave for cooler climes ahead of the impending inferno that is June/July - September/October. At least we’re in the closest place I can think of to paradise - a stone’s throw away from Mojave’s White Heart.