’Tis a fine soft St. Patrick’s Day morning so.
After a 24-hour sandblasting — I’m talking wind in the 30-mph area with gusts approaching 50 — we finally got a drop of rain to refresh the greenery without the need to crank up our irrigation system, tapping the invisible water that’s always in such short supply around here.
Now it appears to be snowing. Yay, etc.
Not snowing snowing, mind you. Not like it has been in Colorado or California. Hijo, madre. This borders on too much of a good thing, unless you’re a skier, or a yeti. Or perhaps an overdeveloped and underwatered desert community downstream from ski country.
What we’d like is a nice blanket that soaks into the sod before the wind can blow it to Hell. Water wizard John Fleck calls this “sublimation,” which means “the loss of snow straight to atmospheric drying without [it] ever having a chance to melt and make it to the rivers.”
As we speak, right on cue, here comes the wind again, as reliable as bad news from the campaign trail. We’re all doomed, some say. Proper fucked.
Well, the world ends for someone every day, yeah? A whole bunch of someones, most days. I’m not sure it helps to dwell overlong on when your turn might be coming round. Better, maybe, to spend that time seeing to it that the other guy’s parade is the one that gets rained on.
Mad Blog Media 
That’s some fine looking yard you have there. It just needs a fine hammock under that pine to the left. And that tree in the center by the wall with be a beauty when it blooms out. Fruit tree?
Yessir, that’s an ornamental plum, well established under the previous management; we installed another on the other end of the yard last summer. I’m just hoping this wind doesn’t flog all the color off them both. Our lilacs didn’t bloom last year, and the wisteria hasn’t flowered but a couple times in 10 years.
I’d like a hammock but I’m afeared the deer would sneak up and bite me in the arse whilst I napped.
Patrick, man that planter looks like a prime place for herbs, Rosemary, Parsley, sage, Thyme, and oregano. The cooking herbs and a line from Scarborough Fair. On the bright side, herbs are not water hogs, so for your semi-arid climate, it would be a win-win situation. Been researching housing n in ABQ. That is not bad pricing, Still dealing with refugees and carpet baggers in Western Montana. So ABQ looks better and better
The downside to planting here in the foothills is the relentless assault by the critters who preceded us in the ’hood. The deer flat wipe out anything they can get to, which is plenty, and then there are the squirrels, bunnies, foxes, skunks, raccoons, and whatnot. Basically you have to turn your garden into Stalag 17 if you want to get anything out of it other than heartache.
The Duck! City remains a fairly decent deal for the dollar, I think. The place has its problems, but so does everyplace else. I miss aspects of Bibleburg, but 20 inches of snow at a pop isn’t one of them. Tucson I fled in under a year. Prescott in Arizona looks promising, or it did, a few years back. California, Texas, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Wyoming are all right out, and I can’t see myself moving any further east than I already am. This limits the relocation options considerably.