Mother Nature’s Timepiece

CONFUSED CACTUS IN ARIZONA

 Having lived in multiple regions of the country, I have to say, I love having four seasons.  Mild as it may be in Oregon compared to other places, I at least have a sense of what’s coming up next.              

When I lived in Arizona, I was always confused. Was it Spring heading into Summer or Summer heading into Fall? Who knew… it was hot, or hotter, or brain-fried.  As a friend had paraphrased, “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out after 10 AM”. 

During the summer, you went from air-conditioned home, to air-conditioned car, to air-conditioned office if you were lucky.  I wasn’t, as a home care nurse.  Lots of folks out there with no AC in 122 degree heat that I had to visit.    Other times of the year were much more forgiving, which made outdoor living the norm, but it was still mostly dry and warm. 

Rain was only during the monsoons when buckets of water would get flung down from the sky, crashing onto parched earth in a matter of a nanosecond. It was, however, where I learned to respect Mother Nature. R-E-S-P-E-C-T as Arethra Franklin used to sing. Do not mess with weather in Arizona.  Mother Nature will win, and you will die. Seriously.            

Back home on the East Coast the seasons grounded me, gave a sense of time without having to look at a calendar. but even so, weather seemed to be an afterthought, even when hurricane season came around.  Then it was the usual, run to the store and buy up all the bread and eggs and milk and water just in case, this time, it was for real (as only the 6 o’clock news can report) only to find the next day, just a few downed trees and then it was back to normal.        

Unless of course you lived in Phili, where the occasional blizzard was handled a little… oddly… shall we say? But that is another post altogether.             

Perhaps further south was where the action was. Or maybe it was the fact we were so shielded from the open sky that we never really saw what was headed our way and so were lackadaisical about it all.        

ARIZONA

I remember when I first moved West, being fascinated by huge expanses of blue sky unobstructed by buildings or trees or topography. It was also the first time I ever actually saw smog.  A thick brown layer of dirt painted over the city of Phoenix. No wonder people got sick and had lung ailments.  What a shame.       

But the natural landscape always took my breath away.  The Grand Canyon? Oh, God, definitely put it on your Bucket List!  Absolutely incredible.  Though, a friend of mine who went with me the first time I saw it, said she’s had visitors look over the edge and say, “Yeah, ok, so what?”  DORKS!       

In some ways, Arizona still calls to me. Its landscape is wild and ancient and puts you in your proper place in this universe.         

I didn’t realize though, how the well-defined seasons of the East and the variety of weather had shaped my life in concrete terms up to that point. For example, I was used to putting off all those nasty, indoor, household chores for rainy days.  Things like laundry and dusting and even grocery shopping.  Nice days were for being outside and gardening or biking or something enjoyable outside.              

Not in Arizona. Let me tell you what happens when it NEVER RAINS!!        

You run out of clean underwear….              

So, of course, I had to move.              

I bought my one way ticket to Colorado… it was nice, but not quite what I was looking for.  I know this is going to sound crazy, really, I do… kinda like the time I told a guy that I didn’t like to get up before the sunrise, because I always began to wonder if  that would be the day the sun forgot to rise…. I know, I know.  Don’t try to figure it out… I haven’t.  Anyway…..             

View of Mt. Garfield, Colorado from my Street

After Arizona, I had gotten this crazy half-baked (?) idea, that if the world as we know it, came to a screeching halt, I’d like to be somewhere that could produce water… grow crops… hydrate animals… survive without air conditioning.  You know, (sigh) maybe I should just stop here… after all it really doesn’t matter why I moved, just that I did.               

What the hell… going for broke here.                 

Based on my irrational focus on water, Oregon sounded nice, lush and green.  I really missed the color green since Arizona and Colorado. And space. I love space. So going back East wasn’t an option.       

I bounced around the Willamette Valley for a few years before finding the place I’m at now.  It was, as all the places I’ve bought that I really liked AFTER the purchase, love at first sight.  None of this, “well, I guess it will do.”  I could barely get the real estate agent to go thru the house and property fast enough to get back to write an offer.        

To be frank, the house itself was not in my radar.  It was the property, and it still is.  The house is a small, old manufactured home that I call the “shoe box”. I am grateful for the roof over my head, but the thing is made out of  cardboard walls, a crawl space not a basement (eeeeewwwww, how uncivilized) and nothing that is standard size or configuration (“sure lady, we can put in a new gizmo but you have to buy the kind that fits in the manufactured homes and that will cost more” well of course!)          

I put as little money into the house itself as possible and use what I have for fencing, gravel driveways, culverts for the creek, livestock and feed. The diamond earrings will have to wait……             

So, after all these years, it appears as if Goldilocks has found her place. Not too hot, not too cold. Pretty, soothing, lush green everywhere. Plenty of space to experiment with a sustainable lifestyle.  I may actually stay.       

But maybe I’m too old to do this sort of thing anymore, maybe a nice condo in town would be better…….        

And there is that one, small matter of sitting on a major geological fault line…….