Tip-Toe Through the Prickly Thorns

Headlines screamed and news anchors beamed at the news. The California drought was finally and officially over. One glance outside our window told us that weeks earlier. The hills were alive with a tapestry of many colors come alive.

January and February were another story with more than seven inches poured on our heads in less than sixty days.

Taken in perspective, the average rainfall the entire year before was less than five inches. The year before that it was even less. My patio and side yard attested to the standing desert pool that lasted all night and only slowly disappeared the following morning.

Yet it only took one hike up Oswalt Canyon in South Palm Springs to see just how alive the hills had become. Where dirt trails once clearly delineated the routes back into the canyon, now fields of grass blanketed the entire area and buried the trails along with rocks and boulders and scrub brush.

It reminded me of long walks in the woods back home. So, with canteen wrapped around my waist and camera in hand, I ventured back into that jungle of prickly grasses and got lost amid the splendor of desert floral.

Color like this only happens in the desert every ten years or so. It’s a wonderful reminder of the life that lies dormant among the rock and shale and gravel in quiet solitude until heavy rains bring their world to life once again.