...Small winged insects fly at my car, splash against the windshield, and hurl across the road in crazy patterns. The air is thick with flying bugs and I feel as if I'm driving through a storm of black snow. The air stream created by the car's movement carries some of their nearly weightless bodies around and over the hood of the car. What is this swarm of bugs? I think.

I have heard about locusts and grasshoppers and cicadas appearing in huge numbers, but I'm not aware of any unusual infestation of insects in the area, so what is going on? Just then a ray of reflected sunshine crosses my view like a spot light and illuminates a sea of orange and black wings. Then I remember reading in the morning newspaper the Painted Lady Butterflies have arrived.

The next morning, as I take my walk along the curving shoreline of a small man-made lake, a tree on the south shore has a strange look about it. From a distance I can't discern anything specific, just that it looks different.

I continue on through knee-high grass growing lush along the water's edge until I reach the tree. It is a carob in full bloom and covered with Painted Lady butterflies flitting, perching and milling around. They hang en masse on the sweet-scented blossoms like living ornaments on a Christmas tree. Two very happy roadrunners scurry around its trunk grabbing butterflies out of the air and snatching up any on the ground...

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Painted Ladies

...I climb halfway up on my stepladder to reach the highest growth as I begin clipping and coaxing sweet-smelling honeysuckle tendrils into a more aesthetic form. Sounds of a fracas taking place over near the spa catch my attention. From a corner of my eye, as I peer through a jungle of leaves and vines, I see Karnac, the outside cat, racing across the lawn, obviously after something. I drop my pruning shears, jump down off the ladder and run after the cat just in time to see her heading proudly towards the house carrying a baby bunny in her jaws.

I hurry after her, calling her name to get her attention and hopefully to slow her pace. She pauses slightly, which is just enough for me to gently grab her around her sleek, slender middle. As I pick her up, she drops the bunny. I hustle her inside the house, out of the way, while petting her and crooning soothingly, “Nice kitty, nice kitty, I know you can’t help chasing baby bunnies. They are such easy prey. Nice kitty.” I hopes she understands I am not punishing her for something instinctive in her nature.

Back outside, the bunny is desperately trying to escape to a safe place by dragging its frail little body along with its front paws, its limp, immobile hind legs leaving parallel tracks in the sand. I grab a heavy garden glove, thinking I will use it to pick up the little creature and carry it to a safe spot in the bushes to rest and maybe recover. But its wild survival instincts are set on full power and with the use of only its front legs, the bunny propels its broken body over the yard so fast I can't catch it. When it reaches a small dirt niche on the edge of the rock garden, it snuggles up to the rocks and lies there, its heart pounding so hard I can see its body pulse with each rapid beat...

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Innocent Predator

Mushroom Mystery

...Ahead of me, on a stretch of flat gravel, a strange moon-like landscape stops me short. Little growths I don't recognize poke up from the sand and I think, Are those mushrooms or is the glare of the sun distorting my vision?

I've walked this area for over four years and never before seen anything like these curious objects that look like rolled up wads of tissue paper on stems. I count nineteen of the shaggy ghost-like plants. Some are about three inches high, others as tall as eight. Mushrooms in the dry desert? I always thought they only grew in moist places. This is a new mystery.

I kneel in the sand to examine the bizarre-looking white shoots and pull one out of the ground to examine more closely. It has the same elongated shape as the caramel-colored, highly-prized morels we used to pick in the Minnesota woods...

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...Anyone driving east on Interstate 10 follows an historic trail through the pass between Mt. San Jacinto and the Santa Rosa Range on the south and towering Mt. San Gorgonio on the north, a part of the San Bernardino Mountain chain. In between lies the great Coachella Valley desert, known as the Sonoran or Colorado Desert, which blankets the southwest corner of California and extends into New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada.

We who live in the Coachella Valley and look up at the peaks and mountain ranges surrounding us often take the beauty and majesty of our valley for granted. When I am out walking my favorite desert paths in the early morning, I never cease to marvel at the shifting moods of the mountains.

Towering over the valley, purple shadows fade as the sun rises, pink ice cream topped-peaks blend into hazy shapes as the first rays of dawn cast their glow across the landscape. A sprinkling of snow in winter on the highest peaks grows to a whipped cream swirl that lasts until late spring. Clouds drift across steep slopes and sometimes obscure most of the mountain...

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On Shaken Ground