Summer is upon us

Storm clouds gathering

Monsoon season is upon Pima County and adjacent areas. Since the second week of July, frequent late afternoon rains have occurred regularly. They have replenished groundwater, greened up everything that wasn't, and reminded the mechanical/industrial world that storms always win. Getting to this point hasn't been easy.

I was headed to my brother's house across town on July 14 when storm clouds began to gather on the east side of the city. Having wised up about the hazards of being caught out on the streets in a monsoon storm, I decided to steer my little car toward a gas station where there was a large roof over several rows of gas pumps and a small structure where the attendant hangs out. Impromptu plan: I could buy gas and then wait out the storm. No sooner had I pulled up to a pump, the wind began to blow, carrying with it a whole lot of nearly-horizontal rain. With the wind and rain was a whole lot of trash that the wind had picked up from somewhere and was now flinging through space at 30 or 40 miles per hour. I was parked next to a gas pump, but the car was obviously larger than the gas pump, so protection from hurtling objects wasn't really an option. I watched as a large plastic tarp and maybe a banner or sign or something with strings fluttered across the parking lot about 30 feet away. Whew! Dodged that. I was texting my brother to let him know that I had pulled over to wait out the storm when a huge slab of flat, wet cardboard slammed up against the side of the car, which caused me to perk up and pay more attention. I watched as the box slid over the windshield and continued its travels, trailing after the plastic stuff that was now flying over several rows of parked cars. A few seconds after that, a cardboard beer carton smacked into the rearview mirror; the impact caused the cardboard to rip and fly off over the hood. I watched the carton as it vanished in the torrent. To my right, nearby Stone Avenue had turned into a river. Cars were still driving through the water that was nearly up to the curb, or they were turning into parking lots or turning around and heading back from whence they had come. Driving had become a free-for-all. I was contemplating the dark dark gray sky over the "river" when a flash of lightning occurred, which was followed by a flash of the lights in the gas station roof under which I was parked and then the lights and pumps all blinked off. There would be no gas purchase now. I waited another 15 or 20 minutes for the rain to slow and the wind to die, and then headed south on what I hoped were roads and not rivers. 

Clearly, I didn't wait long enough. At nearly every intersection, several inches of water flowed from east to west. My car does not know how to swim, and its undercarriage is only five inches from the road surface, so timing was everything as I drove through the intersections. If cars were entering the intersection from the other direction, I had to wait until the wave of water their wheels had pushed out of the way had cleared my lane. Then I had to drive stealthily through the shallower water before more water rushed in to fill up the space again. I kept thinking I probably would be better off with a raft made out of logs and a long pole to push myself away from other objects in the stream. Nonetheless I got pretty good at driving through the waves after several blocks, so much so that I had a chance to look around at the damage the monsoon had caused. A bus stop kiosk near the university had been blown down, trees were uprooted, branches were down, trash cans lay on their sides. What must have been a quiet street an hour earlier looked like the aftermath of an angry dude on a bulldozer driving through. 

I cruised through a nearly empty downtown. When I eventually arrived at my brother's house, he was dismayed that a large limb in his ancient Rhus tree had broken during the storm. About 12 feet long, the limb was still propped against the tree but its tips sprawled all the way to the outdoor dining area on his patio, where they rested on a table and chair. An early-morning session with a chain saw would eventually be conducted to clear away the limb.

Since that day, it has rained a few times a week -- I have not been keeping track -- and the intensity of each storm has varied. The quick storms are the best. Wind happens, then rain, then wind, and then everything's quiet again in a matter of half an hour. 

Last weekend, after a break in a thunderstorm that had been going on for a few hours, I opened the back door of the casita to let in some cool fresh air. I was at the computer, and there was a light on in the living room a few feet from the back door. After several minutes, I noticed there were several little bug creatures flying around my computer screen. I just swatted them out of the way and kept working... until they called in reinforcements. I grabbed a paper towel and started squishing the little guys that I thought were flying ants; they disintegrated into little piles of sawdust when they were squished, which seemed a little weird. Maybe these weren't flying ants? I glanced toward the back door, which has a steel security storm door with lots of holes in it. It was covered with little creatures, many of whom were trying to worm their way through the holes to get inside, where they could join their friends in fluttering around the light that was turned on. I got up to investigate. Nope. These were not flying ants. They were termites. Hundreds of termites. Maybe thousands of termites. So many termites. Yikes! I turned off the light and the computer monitor and then flipped on the outside light next to the back door. I hoped the ones that were inside would go back outside through the little holes, but having the light on outside only seemed to encourage more termites to show up and cling to the storm door. On the patio at the base of the door was a very large toad snacking on whatever termites dropped to the ground, but he obviously wasn't eating fast enough or maybe he was now full and didn't want to eat any more. I watched him for a moment and then did the worst thing I could imagine to try to shoo the termites away: I spritzed household cleaner on the storm door, dousing the termites with soapy "Brand New Day" scented disinfecting cleaner. The toad hopped away. He knew this wasn't going to make the termites taste any better.  And then I shut the inside door and turned off all the lights and went to bed. When in doubt about how to manage a termite swarm, sleep always seems like a reasonable option.

Termite tragedy

The next morning, the crosspieces on the storm door were covered with little dead and dying termite bodies. The toad was long gone. I looked around in the living room, not really sure what I might be looking for. There were no great holes in the ceiling near the indoor light where the termites had congregated the night before. And the only indication that any of the termites had ventured all the way across the living room was a single pair of tiny termite wings on my laptop. Just the same, I let the landlord know that there had been an invasion so she could get an inspection or a treatment or maybe just burn down the casita as a precaution. She told me that the next-door neighbors had destroyed a huge termite mound a few weeks earlier when they poured concrete for a new building in their back yard. These little vagabonds had been homeless for two weeks, and when they saw the back door of the casita open, they apparently decided to make their move. For my landlords' sake, I hope the would-be squatters were sufficiently discouraged by my lack of hospitality. 

And now it's August. Rain is still in the forecast, although it seems to have lost some of its gusto. And there are days when the temperature reaches 107, like it's doing today, when the possibility of rain is a toss-up. As I write, storm clouds are gathering to the southeast, the mesquite trees are rustling in the wind, and rumbles of thunder are rolling through the neighborhood. It's not clear if the rain will actually fall here at the casita or just go around, like it sometimes does. 

But the mountains are fuzzy and green now.  It's a reminder. And a good look. 

Greening on the Santa Catalina Mountains