Sand Storm Central and Tan Out Conditions

Happy Saturday Evening to you all. This is Miss Pink the bug brain cat. She reminds me of the wildebeast in Kenya. They have parasites that live in their brains and cause all sorts of physical antics. This cat is either bug brain or she sees things that no one else sees. She literally bounces off the walls, carroming herself from one side of the hallway to the other on her journey to the back of the house.

We also call her the tart. She can be quite coy. She comes around to love you. The next thing you know you are somewhere in the real world, you look down, your trouser legs have been Pinked. Never fails, you've been seduced by the purring.

I'm telling you all these foolish things because the weather is pushing wind and sand and dust through the Sonoran Desert. It's fierce and fearsome. It makes my lungs feel like Miss Pink is in there sharpening her claws.

Theoretically we should get some rain tonight. Maybe. The desert plays tricks. Last Sunday Mount Hopkins had a foot of snow with drifts three feet deep blocking the road to the observatory. The accurate rain gauges recorded only four tenths of an inch of water from all that snow. It was an all day plowing job.

But the mountains are big, meaning hundreds of thousands of acres of watershed. That four tenths of an inch of water from the snow means that the spring down near base camp has fresh water for the coatimundi, the bear, the ringtail cat, the bobcat, the mountain lion and all the lesser creatures. Never think that the word desert means dead or hot; desert means arid. A land of little water. A land where a very little water supports an amazement of life.

And poor Miss Pink is only allowed to look out the sliders. The javelinas come through the alley and the bobcats and coyotes have cats for breakfast.