Heaven In The Backyard
A beautiful Sunday morning–I’m up at the crack of dawn to irrigate a dry lawn with thirst quenching waters from the Rio Grande, much as the ancients have done throughout the centuries.
I stumble into the bathroom to wash the sleep from bloodshot eyes then dress, pull on my boots, and meander out to the back ditch to meet neighbors already congregated. David, next door, has opened the main gate and filled the ditch from which our block will draw an allotment of life sustaining liquid.
Yard dogs up and down the ditch holler just to remind us they are present. Once acknowledged, they cease yapping and eagerly await arrival of the flood through which they run and play in frantic glee. Later, these mutts will track mud and debris into their respective homes sending the lady of the house into a manic state of pissed.
Neighborly conversation flows with the rhythm of the current as we catch up on happenings in our lives–how the kids are doing, the health condition of ol’ man Jones’ at the end of the block, and such.
Once my gate is opened and water rushes into the yard, I wonder to the front to ensure the flow reaches that part unhindered, then go in the kitchen to brew a cup of coffee. Once it is doctored to just the right shade, much the color of the muddy ditch water, I mosey onto the back deck to sit and soak up the morning.
Flights of egrets grace the sky, and wild parrots raise hell. As the water level rises, several species wade about the yard drinking and poking in the mud for bits of nourishment. A pair of mallards drop in to paddle around and root for decayed iris bulbs beneath an old uncultivated garden. The hen softly honks her love song while the drake follows her path wheezing his adoration for her.
A barn owl swoops to the boughs of a cottonwood tree, screeches an announcement of his return home from a successful night’s hunt, then disappears into a hollow trunk to sleep and find renewal. Sixty-three buzzards take to the sky from their roost in a stand of cottonwoods across the street, slowly circling, gaining altitude until they ride air currents at elevations that seem to rival the airliner billowing pencil thin vapor trails against the pinkish-orange dawn sky.
Tonight we will be serenaded by a chorus of frogs who interrupt their hibernation to emerge every irrigation weekend from the mud below.
My breaths come slowly now, as does the heart rate. The water gurgles as I sip hot coffee. Damn, life is grand!
