Petrichor

The earth smells of hot sweaty horse, the gutters gurgle splashy streams of water down rain chains to cascade into almost empty rain water barrels and it’s as humid as a Big Island dawn when this little piece of northern Chihauhauan desert wakes to an early morning thunderstorm this week.

Garlic is still occupying the (future, imagined) milagro cornfield so I didn’t get the Hopi blue corn seed planted in time to catch this lovely rumbly thundery storm, our first of the season, but that doesn’t stop me delighting in the moisture, the charged air and the scent of rain on thirsty desert earth, the metallic scent of the blood of ancient gods.

There was no enjoying sunrise chai outside, but by 10 am the sun is streaming on full power again, clouds mostly retreated. I risk mosquito blood lust to put a ladder against the apricot tree and save a decent haul from the pesky hungry birds. Considering that the main family farm orchards in the county where I live had no apricots set fruit this year, probably due to late frosts and destructive winds, I’m very happy with what this young apricot tree has offered this season. Even better: the apricot tree did all this while my back was briefly turned, while I was away playing in that other paradise, the one that is the old country.

I thought I was leaving the worst ravaged fruit for the birds, however, I do notice a bit of peck marking on some in my baskets. There is nothing more delicious than these desert sun warmed morsels. I don’t blame the birds their greed, but I want a share too. Something at least for the high water bills I pay to support this paradise of fruits and flowers. This year I will not be taking any apricots to market. What I don’t eat fresh will be dehydrated or made into chutney.

My adobe architect roommates seem to be taking advantage of a brief increase in availability of damp earth. Their nest is growing rapidly. Their construction technique is arduous and the engineering decisions made with each little beak-sized mud pellet are amazing. My maternal family tree is hugely populated with engineers including that professor of engineering grandfather. Who schooled these little mud architects? Mosquitoes are also thrilled we got rain. Thus I really need the swallows to breed a whole tribe of mosquito eaters. The feed store is, inexplicably, no longer carrying my preferred enviro-friendly-ish mosquito lava treatment for the rain barrels and birdbaths. Sigh. We are all going to die…Hopefully not of Dengue or West Nile fever waiting for the current conundrum of getting stuff to resolve itself. Or not.

Speaking of “inexplicable” supply chain issues, the supplier of the background cotton cloths which I print on, has let me know they are “out of stock until further notice”. The fabric is an Indian cotton muslin of delicious integrity. From what I can work out it is sewn into the hemmed squares in Pakistan then travels through a North American import/export business in Canada to a warehouse somewhere unknown, but possibly in USA, from whence it is distributed to people like me. Well no, not really people like me. The commercial catering industry is probably the main target market for the cotton cloths.

Good news is the vendor offered me a bottom of the barrel deal on 36 turquoise cloths. It’s a colour I didn’t know they carried, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to get more, but carpe diem and all that. They do work out a few cents more per cloth than bright white, but colours have always been more expensive. I have been absorbing the difference for the sake of de colores. If the supply chain issues don’t resolve themselves in an affordable way, I shall have to do something else with my one wild and precious life. Much though I love carving decorative designs and printing them on cloth, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I can’t get affordable background cloth. I have a house and garden to tend to and there’s always just watching the light change. We are all going to die…Before that I intend to live well and to live wildly. Just look at that blue on blue on blue which is my wash line this week.

Meanwhile the project to thin and relocate purple Iris germanica has been occupying some time and energy in the cooler parts of recent days. The outback Bearded Iris, introduced in autumn of 2020 from a few tubers acquired at community garden exchange, have become rather dense clumps. A West Side Story is evolving around the kitchen window birdbath where precious saffron crocus (currently dormant) live. I did want to plant cow peas here this year, but also really need a space to redistribute the blooming beauties. Not to mention needing to make a place for the latest mail order bride, Grand Canyon Sunset which arrived from Utah this week. I’m looking forward to welcoming the colours of this exquisite Iris flower in future summers. Meantime she needs a comfortable, sunny spot to root down and rise up for a season or so. And please, someone, hide all Iris catalogs away from me for a bit. The line between holding space for a beautiful garden to evolve and greedy hoarding gets frayed sometimes for me.

While pottering around on the west side this week, I notice that Madame Moonflower (Datura wrightii, Sacred datura) has put up a whole Milky Way of a constellation of little moonling seedlings. I am undecided whether to let them take root and grow where they currently are, a bit crowded maybe, or risk moving some seedlings a few feet across to the tail end of the Iris planting area.

Typically I don’t mess with native plants when they want to join the merry throng in the Garden of Earthly Delight, but rather trust that they are establishing themselves where they are most comfortable.

Inspired by the warmth, the lengthening days and now rain, Spineless Prickly Pear cactus, (possibly a variant of Opuntia cacanapa) have put out a dazzle of neon yellow flowers everywhere, brightening unexpected parts of the garden.

This variety has not, in the past, produced tasty tuna. I understand they were originally hybridized a hundred years or more ago, for cattle feed. They are certainly successful to point of being a bit pestilential if one isn’t careful with them. I nurture this particular variety of opuntia, a rescue from a sidewalk free box, also in 2020 when everyone and their cousin stayed home gardening, for harvesting pads for salads and stir fries. My kitchen needs serve to keep the exuberant growth somewhat in check. Bees love the vibrant brief blossoms.

Some of the Bunny Ear/Angel Wing cactus (probably Opuntia microdasys) which I am nurturing in ground and in pots are flowering too. I begged some trimmings from a neighbor a year ago because I think they are just so beautiful with their polka dots, but they are also rather vicious roommates. Beware inadvertently brushing this seemingly soft and fuzzy member of the Cactaceae family. You will spend days pulling microscopic spines from your flesh. I swear they launch them into the air, through walls even, if you so much as even think about them.

The hellscape cacti are settling in, while a young ocotillo (middle left against stone wall above) has green leaves. I look forward the the drama of an ocotillo in this area. One day. If I’m still alive.

This glorious purple opuntia was introduced in 2023 as a single pad rescued from a derelict building. Every year when it gets a new round of pads I am blown away by how beautiful and quirky they are. I had no idea.

I don’t know what her true botanical identity is, but this Purple Drama Queen (still honing my skills for writing purple prose in plant catalogue descriptions) is a true attention hog at this time of year. People walking past cannot resist stopping to take pictures. They are mostly guests from the explosion of short term rentals which have gentrified the area in recent years. While I totally understand PDQ’s charisma, I draw the line at them photographing me. Especially without permission. This morning I wished I had some Chinese firecrackers on hand when some rude person pointed their phone at me squatting up to my elbows in dirt, pulling garlic in the garden just behind this opuntia. Yes, they might have really just wanted a picture of the Purple Drama Queen, and might also truly not have noticed me amongst the hollyhocks, behind the pomegranate, but I was there too, you know, in ancient torn and patched clothing that barely leaves me decent and hair full of twigs and leaves.

Rude Person could have introduced themself, asked if it was okay, and they might even have gotten a story. I can be a formidable storyteller at times. As it was they got me full fierce goddess squat, giving serious stink eye in their instagram moment. I asked them to delete, but am not holding my breath. Life’s too short to sweat the uninitiated.

Something similar happened at farmers market last Saturday. A grown up person old enough to have some silver in their crown, purchased a tote bag. (For which I am truly grateful) As soon as they had handed me some money, and while I was getting them change, there they were making pouty fish lips at their phone, in my market stall right next to me counting out dead presidents…. No discussion with me as to whether this was okay, or did I want to be captured as exotic (?) colour for their holiday memories. “But you’re so colorful, so beautiful, so exotic…” when I remonstrated. Bah humbug.

We are all going to die…true that, but it doesn’t mean we can’t also sometimes reach blindly into the murky dark of a submerged memory of somehow being more respectfully alive.

That’s when it happens. When we stop, breathe deeply, inhale the blood of immortals from another time long long ago in a far away place. Here. Now. Ah petrichor! Chemical memory of immortality. Inhale it! The gift of a dawn desert thunderstorm. Three days later the town is still drunk on it.

This week’s reading:

Dark Laboratory: on Columbus, the Caribbean and the Origins Of The Climate Crisis by Tao Leigh Goffe. 2025. I’m heasitant to say “recommended” about this dark and often uncomfortable work placing the origins of racism and the climate crisis within the colonial context while challenging (the myth of) the Garden of Eden. This is not easy reading. I don’t always agree with the often harsh lens through which the author views history even as I (think I) understand the position and premise. The author’s voice is fairly strident in this mix of personal biography and genealogy, history, cultural and social studies, and commentary on gardens and gardening. It won’t be for everyone. For me it ultimately sounded an impassioned plea for island ecosystems to Have A Voice. At The Table where the future (or the end game) is mapped. If there is a table. It’s an alternative storytelling to …oh…say the tooth fairy and glib we are all gonna die narratives.

I say this even as, in a section titled : “Genres of Garden” I found myself personally struggling with the weight of this word string: …the violence of botanic gardens where beauty is defined through fascist forms of control disguised as elegant gardening…”

Ja. Well. No fine. I’m off to be very inelegant in the garden pulling stinkin’ garlic from the mud and manure.

Consider the lotus. With roots in mud, it rises.

Lotus blossom pictures taken in a botanical garden in Hilo, Hawaii, circa 2014.