Rain Graces a Thirsty Desert and Four-footed Winter Company

For the past three months, hardly a drop of rain has fallen here in the Middle San Pedro Valley. This is, after all, a desert region, or nearly so – deserts are defined as areas that receive less than ten inches of precipitation per year. Here, we get a tad more than that. 

When the skies turned darker and darker shades of gray a few days ago, I was overjoyed. The land – and its life – has been under duress in southeastern Arizona. The past summer “monsoon” season yielded very little rain. So, when it finally began to rain earnestly on, of all days, my birthday, it felt like an exceptionally wonderful gift. As I stepped outside at dawn that morning, the air bore the rich, humid smell of rain and earth and wet leaves. I drew in big lungfuls, savoring the feel, the coolness, the dampness. For most Americans, rain is no big deal, a common part of life. Here, it is always something to be reverently grateful for.

The ground had changed color in two ways; it had turned darker  from the thorough soaking, and had also turned green, carpeted with millions of minuscule velvet mesquite leaves that had been unleashed from the trees by the pelting raindrops. The cyclic path of nutrients from soil to trees and back to the soil lay exposed at my feet, exemplified and accelerated by the rain.

A few hours after dawn, a group of mule deer appeared. They are part of a small herd that has taken up residence in the surrounding mesquite bosque for the past several years. We always welcome their company and never consider them as our “guests,” for they and their kind have been here long before us or our forebears. If anything, we are honored to be guests in their home.