Monsoons!!!

It's gray and rainy! We might as well be living in the Pacific Northwest! Everything is lush and green.

It's been such a great monsoon season the ocatillo look weird -- they are full and lush and densely covered with green, plus they have new shoots coming out near the top of the branches.

We have been having drenching rains -- both the kind where it just pours down and floods the washes and roads, and the kind where it gently rains for an hour or more. I could do without all the gray weather, but I guess it's worth it for the great amounts of rain we are getting.

Abe the big dork...

Every day I drive through narrow streets with tree branches that are approximately the same height as Abe's face hanging out the Suburban window.

And every day I have to drive close to those trees when meeting someone driving the other way. Abe just can't seem to get the idea that he should maybe pull his head in to avoid getting walloped in the face by branches.

Tess said he snaps at the branches, so maybe he thinks they are flying by for his pleasure...

He still cannot be trusted off the leash outside. If we are going to pick up Tess from school -- that is, I have car keys in my hand and it is mid-afternoon, he will run out and wait to get into the Suburban. But when we get home, if he is not leashed, he will run away down the street trying to find dogs through their backyard gates. Pain in the butt dog...