Monsoon Season, Albuquerque Style

The summer months are monsoon season ... or at least they used to be. Folks here in New Mexico look at the sky and wonder: when is it going to rain? I think the local news was keeping a countdown when I arrived back from New Jersey. I can't remember what they were up to, but there hadn't been any rain.

Then a few weeks ago, it decided to rain, spritz really, a little bit in the evenings. Then we had some rain in the afternoon. One evening about two weeks ago, we had a long, slow rain. That's the kind you want when you are in a drought. It gives the rain a chance to be soaked up into the ground rather than just run to some other body of water: river, stream or drainage canal.

I would say, given my talks with some folks around here, that they are not used to having droughts here. The two years I have been here, I haven't seen a lot of rain, so I can't really judge if this seems to be seasonable or not. But, when I asked if folks had rain barrels, two out of three said no.

This morning, while I was making breakfast, I heard pitter patter and looked out the window to find RAIN lightly falling through half sunny skies.

I wasn't the only one who went outside to enjoy it:



photo credits: Me, fancy camera, two neighbor girls outside my front door.