Kinda like winning the lottery

When the oasis gets a monsoonal rain it takes a while to adjust to the new-found wealth. And planning how best to secure and invest it. It's hard to explain, but it's so overwhelming at first. An analogy might be your old house gets flooded. The insurance will give you a brand new house, which you're ecstatic about, but it takes you a while to adjust to your new reality. Things are lost in the flood. You have to help build the new house, etc. You know you'll be overjoyed, but it takes a while to become comfortable with your new world. Here's 11,000 gallons I'm putting in the bank.

Have lost a bunch of my new wealth, had fun spending some of it, and saving some of it. This rain was the second biggest the oasis ever had. So hate not being here when it happened. The other one was in June also (2000).

Today I was finally able to get into the arroyo to the hackberry thicket. Some were better off than others but I'm pretty sure they'll all survive.

They were in at least 3' of water at one time based on how high the debris is on them.

The other soapberry thickets don't suffer from the drought as bad as this one does. I think it's because this one is practically on bedrock and has very little soil underneath. But they chose to grow there. I didn't plant them.

It rained some in the night, and rained again just awhile ago. Feast or famine.

I dug out my mosquito hat. I figure tomorrow the swarms will hatch.

_______________________________________

UPDATE: After the rain I went to the ponds looking for odes. It was great for about 10 minutes and then the skies darkened, thunder rolled, wind came up and everything stopped flying. In that brief 10 minute period I saw this Scissortail fly into the sparse cottonwood tree. I think it looks like it's getting new leaves. YAY!

Can't believe how suddenly my world went from despairing drought to glorious rains!

Stucco tank looking south

LATER: At dusk I went down to the oasis to check on the owls. Got a neat rainbow shot.