Desert Rain!

In the midst of our hailstorm (while remotely considering that the ice pellets could grow to be golf balls) I inhaled the most exquisite aroma! Hunching over Vance as his maternal fortress to protect him against Mother Nature ~ I asked Mark, "do you smell that?"

Normally, when asked that question, my husband responds with a determined, "NO". To my surprise, this time he said, "YES"...and it's wonderful, whatever it is"!

No joke, I felt transfixed. We've all had experiences where a sensory delight transports us to a separate zone and you become completely absorbed in the present tense ~ the moment , the place, the experience. With this adventure, the desert owned us. We were a bit nervous, we were soaking wet and we were being seduced by this amazing, organic perfume rising up from the basin floor.


That fragrance was the silver lining ~ the Yin and the Yang of nature in the desert.

But you might not know that it wasn't the rain we were smelling at all. The leaves of the creosote bush, one of the commonest desert shrubs, give off a thick sweet odor during periods of high humidity or rain. The smell so often associated with rain is actually the creosote thirsting for a drink. Actually, a mixture of up to 49 different chemicals and oils produced in the leaves create the smell that made the Spanish call it “hediondilla,” or “little stinker.”

Yeah, we went through a little hail out in the desert, and it smelled like heaven!

posted by Mark