July 12, 2004
Well, last night we got our first big monsoon rain. Unfortunately it didn’t start till late at night, but it was the works: thunder, lightning, buckets of water. This morning it was hot and humid, the air so thick that everything looked a little blurred and pastel, as if we were all in a watercolor painting. It rained again this afternoon, but not so much lightning and thunder.

Our big nature encounter yesterday occurred in the house. I saw a tick on the bed, and popped it: lots of blood. So we took off all the bedding and vacuumed the mattress and under it. No more ticks, but we had two kissing bugs. We vacuumed them up and threw out the bag. While looking for a new one, Rocko found a scorpion in one of the pantry drawers. (Or, as he described it, “One of those spider-things with a curly tail.”)

The birds are still spending plenty of time at the pond, despite the rain. And the algae have returned, so the water is murky. I haven’t decided what to do about it.

The door on the cardinal feeder sometimes sticks. When that happens and the female cardinal is on the perch, she simply pecks at the door repeatedly, eventually sending the perch low enough to open the door. Clever little thing.

This morning on the River Walk one of the super-fast lizards with a striped tail ran out just as a bike came, fast. I thought the lizard was a goner, especially since he kept going. But then what he did was run along WITH the bike, staying between the two wheels for several feet, then ducking out and across the road. I figure he will pass on his super bike-genes and produce a whole race of biking lizards. Maybe called Lance Lizard.

Finally, I saw an adorable small woodpecker on a saguaro during our walk today. From the red stripe on its crown apparently it was a ladderback, which I have seen in Madeira Canyon, but never before in town. There is so much nature all around. I’m so lucky to live here!