Monswoon.

Yesterday evening we experienced another burst of rain. Even though it rained for a solid twenty to thirty minutes, as soon as the clouds stopped, the ground started to dry up. Where there used to be a river of three feet across running through the driveway, there was now just a half foot trickle. As I stepped out on the balcony for a looksie, the air smelled honey sweet. I wonder what makes it smell so sweetly.

This morning I dropped off a Netflix movie in the mailbox, and had some critters greet me along the way. The entire trip is just ten minutes, but I ended up seeing (in order of appearance) a white-tailed bunny, two desert squirrels*, three lizards, another squirrel*, and four lizards once again. I tried to take a picture of all those reptilians, but they are so fast that by the time I reach for my phone they've darted off somewhere. The one time I had my phone ready and took a picture, the little guy had skirted out of the photo, so now it's just a picture of gravel. These lizards are different from the ones that I had been seeing previously. The first kind were larger, probably five or six inches long, and had a good amount of muscle and belly on 'em. This second kind are probably three or four inches long, super low to the ground, and are quite skinny. It's hard to tell, but these might be a younger version of the larger ones. Although, I'm saying that without any knowledge of their breeding cycles.

* After some research, the critter I'm referring to here is actually called a Rock Squirrel. Here's an accurate picture of said squirrel.

They're much leaner than any squirrel I'd seen, and their tails are super sleek instead of bushy. Very desert-like.

One stationary thing I did take a picture of is one of the bushes all around the apartments. These have started producing a wonderful fragrance, and only recently bloomed. I think my parents have one of these in their backyard, but that's just going off of looks.

When the purple blooms aren't there, you would see that the leaves are a dusty green-blue color. As you can tell, it was very bright this morning (the sidewalk is almost blinding).

It's supposed to rain again tonight, but I think we'll miss the majority of the rain. So far, we've gotten just a little above an inch of rain since the start of Monsoon Season (July), and things are starting to come to life. I can't wait to venture up that mountain some time when it's not quite so hot!