The wind moves past the screen
no sound
the curtain billows back.
This indeterminate Spring
is dreaming
older days outreach the Sun
higher and beyond
memory is metaphor
not the thing itself
but enough it may fool us
listening for the green edge along the canyon
Never certain
when the next rain may come.
The endless afternoons of dry heat return—110 in the shade. The last of the yellow blossoms shrivel under the palo verde where the dry petals stir in a swirl of wind.
The tortoise leans his face against the gravel and mud of the arroyo’s east bank. He is in his niche and he doesn’t want to be seen. He felt the shock waves of the horses’ hooves long before we arrived.
Here the seasons are rain and no rain. In a drought the desert is in perpetual autumn when things come to the end of growth and what was once alive turns yellow and then more pale.
When the temperature exceeds one hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit, the air smells of wood and bark just before they burst into flame.
Twice since I came to this place, the ground here has caught fire. Oddly, both times this happened, the weather was cool. The first time it happened, I smelled what I thought were burning weeds. I searched for the source but could see nothing until I reached the old horse corral. There I was amazed to see many small threads of white smoke rising out of the bare, hard packed dry layers of dirt. A fire truck had to come spray the smoldering ground.
The second time, I looked out the living room window and saw curls of white smoke rising out of the bare dirt of the embankment on the west side of the house. I thought maybe a pack rat had carried a lit cigarette butt into its nest. But when we dug into the dirt of the embankment to stop the fire we found no rat nests — only smoldering pieces of scrap wood buried in the dirt. Apparently enzymes and organic compounds in the desert soil had a strange intense chemical reaction which caused the soil to ignite and burn the wood.
For the past two mornings a small rattler was coiled by the potted fig tree. Yesterday the little snake was on the shady side of the fig tree, but today it faced East. Not long after I came indoors I heard angry loud rattling that made the dogs bark. I went to see and there was nothing there to harass the snake, nothing to account for the little snake’s furious rattling except for the Sun — the snake was rattling angrily at the Sun’s heat that only got hotter and hotter as it rattled, until finally the snake fled into the drainpipe that goes underground.
I saved a small rattlesnake from the pit of the old cistern last year, but this time when I saw a small snake down there, I delayed because the weather wasn’t hot yet, and I thought maybe the snake wanted to be there where little mice also live. Alas, when I went to check on the snake later, it was stretched out dead. In no time the hungry creatures of the desert happily consumed it.
It’s July 6 and the wildfires in the Catalina Mountains have filled the entire valley with smoke. On the night of July 4, the flames came over the crest of the mountains and spread down toward the city, dwarfing the fireworks displays there. That was the night the rattlesnakes disappeared underground where six inches of dirt over your head will save you from wildfire.
Here are some of the practical measures people can take to safely live side by side with rattlesnakes in the Sonoran Desert. Look first before you reach into a flowerpot — they hold cool dampness and provide shady spaces for rattlesnakes to rest during the day. Always provide a water bowl far away from the dog’s water bowl, far from the paths humans and pets take, and keep the water bowl full so the snakes never need to come close to your garden path or doorstep for water. Keep your pathways and walks open and well swept so you have a clear view at all times. Keep paths and steps well lit. Watch where you step — look behind yourself before you step backwards.
I have a sketch for a snake house for the garden made with five rectangular pieces of gray slate from south of Laguna, but any flat stones will do. This gives snakes shady sanctuary so they will feel secure. If you give the snakes a secluded cool area in the summer you will seldom see them elsewhere.
Over time the rattlesnakes will get to know you and your pets. They learn human and dog behavior and seem to understand the timing of our daily routines; they try to avoid encounters with us at all cost. A few times I’ve been very early or very late with my outdoor chores and I’ve surprised snakes that didn’t expect me at that time of day.
The rattlesnakes that live in your garden or under your house will prevent unfamiliar rattlesnakes from moving too close until they learn how to get along with humans and dogs. Unfamiliar snakes are usually refugees from the real estate developers’ bulldozers that scrape the desert bare and kill everything in their path. Understandably these uprooted snakes may be edgy, so back off and give them space; they will learn quickly that you mean no harm.
CHAPTER 21
A few months ago on a ridge near my house, a bulldozer destroyed the hives of the wild bees to clear a building site. The bees have lost their stores of food in the hive, and now they want me to feed them until their scouts locate a new site for their hive. Swarms of them crowded the hummingbird feeder near my porch so the hummingbirds couldn’t get near. So I tried pouring sugar water into shallow saucers for the bees but a number of them had to be rescued from drowning. Then I tried a clean sponge in the sugar water, but the hummingbird feeder still works best to feed the bees.
It is mid-July now and the bees come for water and swarm above the bowls. The bees are attracted to sweat or wet clothing or wet hair, so I try to take care not to accidentally squeeze or crush them.
Bees understand kindness. They never try to sting me while I try to save one of them from drowning. I extend a leaf or twig and leave them to recover in a safe place. My dog Dolly eats the poor bees if I am not careful where I put them.
The wild bees know me after all these years. I remind them that I am a friend each year when they return. In the hardest part of the summer, the wild Sonora honeybees eat the green algae that grow around and on top of desert ponds. Years ago when I kept water hyacinths in the rainwater cistern pool, the wild bees ate the outer layer of the plants during the hottest and driest part of that summer. If you are lost and need water, follow the honeybees and they will take you to water or at least to damp earth.
For years the pack rats chewed on the 2×4 and 2×6 lumber in the kitchen floor and walls of this old ranch house. The pack rats found holes left by inept, careless remodelers and gnawed their way up through the floor into the kitchen cabinets, next to the electric range.
I patched the holes with squares of wood but the rats made short work of that; I even tried metal roof flashing but they chewed it like aluminum kitchen foil. Hardware cloth worked, so I was vigilant where I saw incursions by the rats. What I could not see, behind the electric range, was the wall with the opening down to the crawl space under my old ranch house.
Charlie was away a great deal of the time, and while he was gone, the pack rats gnawed through the old floor under the cabinets. Charlie offered to pay for the kitchen remodeling. No, I told him, I didn’t want the disruption while I was working on the novel. I bought a stainless steel bread box to keep fresh fruit and other goodies safe from the rats.
The following winter the reddish-colored rattlesnake that lived under the house found its way through the holes and came hunting for rats in my kitchen. No one was home at the time so the snake went into the dining room and crawled under the red chaise longue. The snake waited until the house was dark and quiet and in the middle of the night it roamed around though it was always careful to return to its place under the chaise longue before daylight.