... For the past week, thunder echoed over the surrounding mountains, while big white puffy clouds tinged with gunmetal gray threatened rain. One day drops of water actually fell out of the sky for all of ten minutes, but most afternoons, only a few drops squeezed out of stormy clouds to barely wet the ground.

Since I missed my morning walk, an afternoon swim seems like a good way to cool off while providing some exercise as well. It doesn't take long to shed my sweaty clothes and pull on a swimsuit. Grabbing a towel and a cold bottle of water, I head outside to the golf cart, my transportation around the ranch. After driving the electric vehicle lickety-split down the driveway bouncing over pot holes and rough spots in the gravel road, I park near the swimming lake behind a stand of Texas ranger bushes in full purple bloom. Their tiny, gray-green leaves remain on the plant for most of the year but are stiff and brittle, an adaptation to avoid sun damage, and whenever the humidity is high, the bushes burst forth with brilliant deep lavender flowers...

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Bird Ballet

...After a leisurely walk down a sand-paved wash and over wind-driven dunes covered with creosote bushes, I arrive home hungry and ready for breakfast. With the morning sun laying its soothing warmth across my shoulders, I settle down in the grape arbor to eat my bowl of oatmeal and read the paper.

Without warning, a loud ruckus erupts in the tall eucalyptus trees framing the north side of my backyard. The caws and shrieks remind me of the noise from a flock of wild parrots that frequented the beach area of my old neighborhood. There can't be wild parrots here in the desert, I think, as I leave my bowl of cereal and get up to investigate the raucous screeching.

Standing in the shade of the eucalyptus trees, I can make out a shape, like a football on end, balanced high in the upper branches of a huge old mesquite tree on the edge of the eucalyptus grove. I go into the house for my binoculars and train them on the mysterious lump in the tree. A black hooked beak, devilish-looking tufts resembling ears and two big, round, yellow-ringed eyes stare back at me. It's a Great Horned Owl ...

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Owls & Hecklers

Ravenswood

...On the southeast shore of the swimming lake a tamarisk grove rises out of a large sand dune. Whether the dune came first or the tamarisk trees, I can't be sure, but I do know the dune builds constantly. By the time the original fast-growing saplings acquired thick trunks and massive branches, so heavy they cracked and fell to the ground with the help of a strong wind, they were growing out of a massive dune. Now huge fallen tree trunks, at least four feet in diameter, line the edges of the mound, and new growth from each trunk shoots straight upward forming side walls of foliage. Leafy tree tops bend inward and roof over the open center area obscuring it from view.

A gentle breeze fans through thin, elongated leaves hanging like curtains, and a thick carpet of dried needles feels soft and spongy beneath my feet. It soaks up sound, blocking out the world beyond. This inner clearing is always cool so that, on the hottest day, I can walk through an opening in the branches and emerge into a shady green-scented glen...

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...It seems appropriate that the creosote bush should smell like a drugstore since it has long been a source of herbal remedies. Sometimes called the “Indian Medicine Chest,” native people used parts of the plant as antiseptics and to heal wounds. A tea made from the leaves was taken to aid in curing an upset stomach, colds, tuberculosis and even venereal disease. Bathing in the tea was thought to ease rheumatism.

Just recently, a botanist friend of mine advised me to make a paste of the leaves to apply on scratches and small cuts. “No other medication is needed and it hastens the healing,” she said. I have yet to try it because I tend to ignore small abrasions regularly inflicted on my arms and legs from reaching into prickly bushes and walking through desert brush.

The creosote plant was so useful medicinally, it was recognized and listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia from 1842 through 1942 as an expectorant and pulmonary antiseptic. Considering the many uses for remedies in the past, researchers are currently studying creosote to see if it has potential for curing cancer...

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Nature's Drugstore