So the monsoon is here. It arrives in this area over the Mexican border, roiling up over the mountains to the south. With the added humidity and lowered temperatures arrive previously covert lifeforms. One evening driving home I watched a surreal-but-real black spider the size of a housecat scuttling across route 80. I could almost hear its spiny legs clacking as it headed west and into the brush.
There are tiny and delicate manifestations, like this airplane-shaped visitor to my patio door…
On a typical walk after a rain, one might find some ants moving a precious mesquite seedpod, much beloved by all animals for their sweetness, a good way to make friends with a goat, for example…
Or a rare box turtle, resting under his sou’wester…
Or a sleeping reptile with bad judgment about sleeping locations…
All the above were from a single walk a few days ago.
Then a persistent rain came along. The sky stayed dark and it felt like an autumn day in the Northwest The newly-dominant animals are invisible, but deafening. Ululating amphibians have taken over the soundscape, drowning out bawling bovines and mischievous coyotes.
Dry areas have become ponds overnight and not small ones…
Many of them sound like the high-pitched frogs common to summers in the midwest. But other, larger ones sound like an agonised muppet, perhaps Beaker with heartburn. Multiply by thousands and you get the idea.
And what looks to me like wild squash is beginning to bear fruit…
So cross off that idea of AZ being perpetually dry and sere and boring and monotonously sunny, for anon we shall croak again.