The Unexpected Gift

A year that has brought us record breaking early heat has also brought an unexpected gift. The best gift you can get in the desert. Rain.

In the land of five seasons, the current one being Foresummer with its primary characteristics of drought and increasing heat, a long slow cool rain is the last thing you’d expect. Desiccated cactus, panting birds, and triple digit temperatures, yes. Water falling from the sky, no.

For most places a rainfall total of a few tenths of an inch would go essentially unnoticed, but here it can be a life changing event. Desert plants and animals are patient during drought and fiercely opportunistic with the smallest measure of rain. Saguaro feeder roots rest an inch or two under our rocky soils and the slightest rainfall is instantly put to use restoring water provisions, swelling the cactus’s girth overnight. Ocotillo take the opportunity to push leaves out of their thorny canes within 48 hours, transforming themselves into huge bunches of green pipe-cleaners. Resurrection fern, a crumbly paper bag brown plant masquerading as dirt most of the time, will unfurl into emerald green carpets in a few hours. Birds, encouraged by the vegetation growth they instinctively know follows rain, will decide to start second or third families for the year while the air is perfumed with the scent of the creosote.

Though the mesquite branches are now bowed, laden with rain, we desert dwellers know that in a day, maybe two, the sun will again feel like an assault and the ground beneath our feet will appear to have never experienced the gift of rain. But we’ll see the subtle effects -- greener trees, plumper prickly pears, new strings of baby quail. It will be enough to see us through to the next season, the summer monsoon and its embarrassment of riches.