Desert Ice Storm 3/1/22

Like most people, when we thought of the desert, we pictured a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia: hills of sand with no plants, animals, or rain. We couldn’t have been more wrong! Not only does the Sonoran Desert have life but it has life in abundance!

It might only be the first day of March, but we already have so many flowers blooming! I am most looking forward to the saguaro cactus 🌵 blooming, but that won’t be for a while. In the meantime, we have some lovely leafy bushes that are sending up some stalks covered with orange flowers, large bushes covered with tiny purple flowers, and some tall and thin sprouts that remind me of “onion grass” but have a showy cluster of purple flowers. 

The Fish Hook Cactus has hard, curled spines. These spines can be used for fish hooks as they are durable, curved, and sharp. All the spines curl down, though, so they are a relatively “safe” cactus. When we go walking, Braydon likes to find these, run up to them, and play them like a piano! 🎹

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We also have added some more animals to our list of Desert Creatures! Jeff saw a jackrabbit (the other rabbits we had been seeing were cottontails), we have all seen roadrunners, and I saw a coyote and a fox! Sue Ellen, even preggers, is a mighty huntress and caught a Desert mouse 🐁. She was so proud of her catch she brought it into the bus to show us! The problem was that it wasn’t dead, she just wanted to play with it, and she put it down on the floor. Of course it ran away and I had to hunt it down with her, and then get both mouse and growling, possessive cat out of the bus! Ugh! She still just wanted to play with it, but the poor thing was injured so Jeff snagged it from her (not before the fox saw the commotion and wanted to be part of the food chain and eat Sue!) and dispatched the mouse. I figured mouse livers and such would be good for a mama-cat-to-be so I dissected the now dead mouse and gave Sue the prize. SHE DIDN’T WANT IT! The little snit wouldn’t eat it at all – even after all that! Cats…

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It also isn’t always hot with the sun beating down in the desert, either. Although Phoenix, Arizona has an average of of 299 sunny days per year, it does storm here, too. This past week we had a storm with wind, rain, sleet, and even HAIL!

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Also this week, we got some mail! We had our mail sent in from South Dakota again, and we got a package 📦 with lots of things we had ordered. We had some things shipped to Jeff’s parents as we needed some things that we had them hold for us, too. They boxed it all up, along with some little goodies for Braydon, and sent it over. Jeff got some shoes for work, we both got glasses (for all who were asking, Zenni did a great job and I love both of my pairs!), Braydon got new shoes, too (but they didn’t make it in time – should be here later this week), and many more items we were in need of. From SD we got our renewed registration cards and stickers for both the bus and the Jeep, our security deposit refund from the dumpy trailer park we lived at during the month of December, some hard copies of our pay-by-plate toll bills that we had already paid because we had our forwarding service scan them for us as to not be late, and (best of all!!) Christmas cards from my aunt and Grandmother! It was a super-fun time of opening everything!

We would like to say a special thanks to AJ and to Jeff’s parents for sending us special things, even while we are out here in the desert! 🏜

We aren’t sure what adventure this week will hold, but come by again for more buslife happenings! For now, enjoy this lovely picture of our back yard. ☺