Alright, it is time to wipe the dust from my eyes and wrestle myself out of this sandy hole into which I've burrowed. After all, spring is newly arrived .. lupines, poppies all popping up, first bug bite of the season (black widow .. not scorpion), owls are courting on the telephone poles and my husband claims he has sighted the first turkey vulture.

Strangest of all phenomena though is the changing of the oak leaves from green to bright yellow -- a springtime phenomenon in chaparral -- whereupon they drop and sprout new leaves all over again. Spring and fall are all wrapped up together.

Met a woman originally from Puerto Rico and she agreed that the desert here resembles the rainforest, without the rain. What more can I say of this country? The hominid fauna remain as odd as the other types of desert fauna and flora .. all (in a sense) are outsized or odd-jointed characters living in mean circumstances.