Oy! The humidity!

Walked the dog this morning and, just like the last couple of days, came home lathered! Dripping! Fresh t-shirt no longer fresh, but damp and sticking. I thought, oy! it must truly be monsoons, the humidity is so high. So I went on the weather and (friends and family in Eastern states, please forgive me) found that the humidity was a sauna-like 5o+% . Found myself truly amazed at the speed at which our bodies and minds adjust. The average humidity here when it’s not monsoon season is probably 20%, may25?%. In the really dry season, it’s even lower. I have to go back to DC for work at the end of July. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll survive.

Speaking of monsoons. I guess they have for sure started. Despite the fact that we’ve had rain once or twice a week since before Memorial Day (remember that Sunday afternoon when the Blues Festival was rained out?), we have learned that it’s not truly monsoon until the storms come in from the southwest. For a week or so, I’ve had the experience of the seeing the day’s weather develop out my office window facing north and east: at 8 am, the sky is deeply blue with mare’s tails clouds; at 10 am, there is a beautiful cathedral of white cloud building over the Pinos Altos mountains to the north-northeast; by noon, there is a dark gray bottom to that cloud cathedral, and by dinner, the wind is blowing and rain is falling. But that’s just rain. That’s not the monsoons. Well, a couple of days ago, I think the monsoons started for real, because by mid-afternoon, the sky to the south was black, the sky to the north was sunny and blue and we were sitting right in the seam. The seam can be nice, though – we saw rainbows 3 evenings in a row, including two that were doubles!

I have to tell you that these clouds-blue-clouds-storms make for magnificent, dramatic skies. I also now understand where all the cartoons got the idea of the miserable one with the rain storm right overhead and nowhere else. Out here, that’s a fact! In fact, when we went to Tucson a couple of weekends ago, I saw a most marvelous example – on one side of the car within 100 yards, there were dust devils swirling along the highway. On the other side of the car within 100 yards, it was pouring rain. A cloud can drop rain across a whole mountain range, but it can also drop rain in a 1-mile-or-less band width. I swear that, being in the seam, one evening it was time to walk the dog – it was sunny on the north side of the house when I called Nick to come let’s go and he decided I must be crazy because on his side of the house, the rain was beating against the windows. It is thoroughly fascinating to watch the clouds bring their rain in patches, buckets, and splatters across the landscape – and a good gambling game – is that one going to hit us? Or miss us? Your side of the street? Or mine? Wanna bet?

The conclusion (I hope) of our Hitchcock saga of cliff swallows: we kept going to the back porch and the front porch (did I mention the swallows were trying to build in 3 corners over the front door?) and chasing the birds away, and scraping away their mud daubs. I did a little research on the web and found that we really needed to prevent them building their nests. Turns out swallows are protected, and once they build and lay eggs, you can’t destroy the nests or the eggs – not that I’d try, but I really didn’t want people having to come to the front door ducking as the birds whizzed by or covering their head for poop-protection, nor did I want to give up the back porch because of the same set of reasons. So I went to Walmart and bought some netting like you’d use for petticoats or tutus and decided that I would hang netting around the entrances and sides of both porches. Wouldn’t look too great, but would only have to last 2-3 weeks until the birds found other roosts. But, it would appear that just disturbing them and scraping their hard work onto the floor every hour or so was adequate. They seem to have given up. Don’t know whose house the swallows’ve chosen now. But I have 14 yards of netting I could sell them!
Wishing all of you a happy and cheery 4th of July – remember when you’re watching those fireworks that it’s also our 22nd anniversary and blow us a sparkler or two. We’re anticipating a glorious small-town celebration.