Walk in the Wash

The wash from Finger Rock near our house.

One nice thing about the colder weather here is letting the dogs loose in the nearby wash, the one that comes down from the Finger Rock trail. (I have less concern about reptiles.) It means walking two houses down San Simeon Drive, then cutting across openings in creosote bushes and mesquite trees.

This giant fishhook barrel cactus or Arizona barrel
is over eight feet tall.

It's a trail for coyotes and javalinas to commute from the Catalinas to neighborhood rabbits and table scraps. Some weeks ago there was a letter to the Arizona Daily Star complaining about coyotes in the city. Well, Finger Rock wash is one approach.

My favorite landmark is a giant barrel cactus nestled near an old mesquite tree. Slow growing, such cactus might take four years to grow three inches. They live about 130 years and get about five feet tall, but I have seen very few that big. This one in the wash is about eight feet tall, even taller if it were standing up straight instead of tilting towards the south.

I like to walk the dogs without a leash. They are good kids and have learned to stay close. They like "reading the morning newspaper," i.e., sniffing everything, which gets old if I am being dragged by the leash. I make noise and keep an eye out for trouble.

Jasmine & Nazar trot by a mesquite tree.

This recent early morning, I remembered to take a camera. The shapes are so amazing, and the morning light so beautiful.

Mesquite trees come in huge, over-reaching, scrawny shapes. Branches flow wider than tall, out sideways and draped down towards the ground.

Mesquite can regenerate from a piece of root. They have the deepest taproot ever documented: over 160 feet. (They were digging a copper mine when they found the root.) Its bean pods are a staple food for locals, including coyotes.

Hardy or not, I lost one by the driveway that had been planted by a previous owner. I planted a new sapling this year with the hope that I do not overwater it to death. Life may be hardy in the Sonoran Desert, but it's all living right on the edge.