I have a love hate relationship with the place I live. It used to be pretty concentrated on the hate end (Eww, you hot ugly thing!) of the scale, but time and patience has balanced (beautiful winter, how I love thee and the delicious garden tomatoes that I am STILL getting from LAST spring’s tomato plants) it quite a bit.
After growing under the shadows of the beautiful three peaked Mt. Nebo in the Rocky Mountain Range and living in or visiting places like Japan, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and Tonga, moving to a desert climate was quite a shock to my system. I need color like I do food. And not just any food. Like a buffet. Yes, that is it. I need a color buffet!
Gradually I have come to love or at least tolerate many of the things I used to hate and I have learned how and when to find or make color around me (Check out my etsy shop where I display some of it).
I won’t bore you with a list of all the things I love and hate about the desert, but I will select one item. That would have to be the cactus. Actually, it is cacti when referencing them in plural. Did you know that? It still feels funny coming out of my mouth. Cacti. CACti. cacTI. CACTI.
Of course there are so many varieties
but the barrel cactus is the one most associated with the Sonoran Desert. It is tall. And pokey.
And a little on the unattractive side. But, just as many people find shapes in the clouds, we find characters in the cacti.
What do you see here?
And here?
So. Besides the cacTI,
dead looking plants
and rocks and stuff
Did you notice anything else? Like
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there is SNOW on them there mountains?!!!!!!!
And that is one of the things I LOVE about living in the desert. I love winter time and that even though it is rare, sometimes is snows here! And it is just the perfect amount of snow. Enough to see, touch, make a little snowman, and drive 1/2 and hour home and have a picnic in your back yard.
NO KIDDING.
No driving in it.
No shoveling it.
No scraping it off your window.
No tracking snow and rocks on the newly mopped floor.
No kids trapped home on snow days.
Nope.
Just enough snow to build a mini snowman,
get back in the car and know that you have just enjoyed snow in the most perfect way for you.
I guess I may be a desert dweller after all.
I love you dear desert.
But please don’t ask me how I feel about you in July.
