It’s rainy

Tucson has two rainy seasons; afternoon thundershowers in July and August, and a more gentle, steady rain that occurs during December, January and February. The monsoon season in the summer can be dramatic and interesting. The winter rains are just cold and damp. According to the textbook I’m reading for my naturalist class, the summer monsoons are called las aguas and the winter rains are called equipatas. We can also get the northern edges of Pacific cyclones (chubascos) towards the end of monsoon season, which are generally just considered part of the monsoon by the locals.

The gray drizzle in the winter reminds me of back home in Oregon and Washington. Except here it usually only lasts for a few days at a time instead of days and weeks and months on end. So I really am very grateful to live in the desert. I have no idea how I survived the Pacific Northwest for 35 years. I actually like the rain itself, but invariably I get depression and migraines during the winter rains. It’s abrupt – I’ll be depressed within a few hours of the rain starting, and have a migraine within 24 hours. I can’t exercise in the middle of a migraine, so the lack of exercise doesn’t help my mood either.

We’re getting a surprising amount of rain this week. On my errands this morning I had to cross two different washes where water was running across the road. During the monsoon, the arroyos can be too high to ford. It’s so weird that I live in a town where fording creeks is just a normal part of driving to the grocery store. The first crossing was potentially a bit too deep for my Mini Cooper so I went a different route. I would have gone right through it in the 4Runner. The second wash I drove through without an issue.

Of course officially you’re not supposed to drive across a running arroyo. But in practice, the locals have to make judgment calls. This one, two blocks from my house, is easily crossable right now, even with a small car. It’s wide and shallow. Others are steeper, and can be deceptively deep.

Even though it’s not steep, it’s not always crossable during a monsoon event. It can rise to the height of that foot bridge in the picture below!

You can see the branches still stuck on the foot bridge from last summer. Obviously when it’s running that high, you don’t want to drive through it.

These washes are always dry except for during rain events, so it’s fun to see them with water in them.

I got lucky on Monday morning and there was a break in the rain when I was volunteering at the botanical garden. It was cloudy and muddy, but everything smelled so good. The desert smells amazing when it’s wet. I don’t have a very good sense of smell anymore. I don’t think I ever had covid, but it’s hard for me to smell the plants nowadays unless it’s wet, even the aromatic desert plants.

We had some hard freezes before the rains started, and some of the less hardy plants suffered damage. Then everything got rained on, so both my own garden and the botanical garden are a frostbitten, soggy, slippery mess right now.

It’s good for me to have a reason to get outside when it’s damp and muddy, because otherwise I would just stay inside. And I always feel better when I get outside, even when it’s not sunny.

I really enjoy our small group of gardeners at the botanical garden. Having people around is important when I’m feeling down. But when I’m not happy, I’m bad at reaching out to people. I don’t text, I don’t call, I don’t blog, nada. It’s useful for me to have scheduled events, because I will generally show up to things on my calendar that I’ve committed to. Which makes me wonder if I should commit to a few more activities in the middle of the winter! Luckily Tucson is a good place to do winter outdoor activities, despite occasional rains.

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