Rain in the desert is a welcomed affair. A light sprinkle, a massive downpour, or a steady flow for hours. It’s the contrast, the incredible change in temperature, aroma, and “electricity” that makes one want to just stand and watch it come down for hours.

This morning I awoke a little past 5 am to the rumble of the sky above me and the shaking of the construct below, an elevated porch on which I sleep in a tent every night. Pent up, potential electrical charge found repeated orgasmic release in the clouds and surely, to the ground as well, out there, beyond the mesquite that surrounds me.

I was thrilled by the abrupt awakening, the storm a distressed lover who yet unsatisfied by dreams moves into the day with the embrace of thunder. While I lay there for fifteen or twenty minutes, the cool splash of droplets that found their way through the window mesh, the storm was clearly, directly overhead. Sleeping outside, four meters above the ground on a metal deck connected to a metal house, I figure it was the safest place for me to be, or really quite stupid. At that moment my physics brain was unable to discern, so I took the safe bet, gathered my things and hurried inside.

This storm is the first I have experienced here, since purchasing this house and property six months ago. I am reminded of the splendor of the Buffalo Peak Ranch in Colorado where the boundary between the outside and inside of the cabin is thin, just enough to keep the water out, but everything else is welcome in.

Doors wide open on either side of my studio space, a pesky, bold grey striped squirrel who has marauded my garage, compost, tools, and engine compartment of my new car decided to venture in. He stopped about three meters to the right of where I sat, looked to his right, then left, spotted me and darted back out the door. I jumped up and pursued him but he disappeared without a trace. He hasn’t been back … yet.

Time to refill my tea and settle into the tasks at hand. Already, it is half past 1 now, the day gladly spent listening to the rain over Cascabel.

This photo essay is part 1 of 2.

I am a new resident to the San Pedro River Valley, a place as magical and invigorating as any of the wilderness ares I have visited in the western United States. I feel incredibly fortunate to have come into land and a home here in Cascabel, to share this place with an incredible diversity of native wildlife and human visitors from varied backgrounds and interests. We have in common a shared concern for the future of this valley, a narrow corridor that follows the San Pedro from South to North, bounded East and West by designated wilderness, BLM and State land, and private parcels.

Each year, the Nature Conservancy hosts river walks to record the amount of water running at the surface of various streams across the US. For twenty one years, the annual San Pedro river walk has grown to more than 100 volunteers and a total of 300 miles traversed in the San Pedro and its key tributaries. Partners include the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Arizona Game and Fish, Community Watershed Alliance of Benson, and private land owners throughout the river valley, from northern Mexico to the headwaters to the Gila River, a tributary of the Colorado River.

I was fortunate to be invited to participate, following in the footsteps and guidance of my neighbor and renowned naturalist Ralph Waldt and valley resident Sam. In 2018, the 20th year of mapping, just 23% of the river had surface water, the lowest number on record. This low point is consistent with climate, water and drought data recorded throughout the Colorado River Basin. Records indicate early 2018 was the third driest in the Colorado River Basin historic record.

Prior to the 1800s, records and stories tell a very different story. The river was wide and meandering, rich in wildlife of an even greater diversity than now. The fish were reported to be over three feet long, and the valley lush with grass, not mesquite or cacti. Native Americans called this valley home for some 14,000 years prior, with the San Pedro hosting some of the oldest archaeological sites in North America.

But with advent of cattle ranching, timber removal to fuel mining steam engines, beaver removal to reduce malaria, and settlement came topsoil erosion, followed by the narrowing and cutting of the river into far deeper banks. Today, in places, the river lies more than twenty feet below its original bed, a reality check when looking back up to the sky line from where we walked.

Two decades of mapping, however, do show that conservation actions on the upper San Pedro are having a positive impact. The mapping information, along with USGS research, has helped TNC and its partners design an innovative, regional recharge effort to collect storm water and other water sources and put it back in the underground aquifer to replenish river flows.

However, continued depletion of ground water by developers, including the proposed 27,000 home / 70,000 resident Vigneto community near Benson will only further deplete the already heavily-taxed water table.

A recent University of Arizona study confirms that groundwater pumping is drying up Arizona rivers, as told by AZ Central, July 25, 2019, “Groundwater pumping has caused stream flow in U.S. rivers to decline by as much as half over the last century, according to new research by a University of Arizona hydrologist … research confirms that groundwater losses, primarily due to pumping water from below the surface for agricultural and municipal uses, decrease the overall surface water supply and have caused some smaller streams to dry up. This has a downstream effect that influences water levels far beyond the groundwater pumping location.”

This photo essay continues with part 2.

My first two months living in the San Pedro river valley a has been an extraordinary, daily adventure in temperature extremes, welcomed sun rises and stunning sun sets; no less than a dozen species of birds just outside my door, and the daily visit of four deer to my watering hole. I have been surprised by the rapid taming of an otherwise wild turkey who decided of her own accord to tap on the glass of my glass door, to tell me when she is hungry. She then follows me around the house to the spot (at a safe distance) to where I feed her. Her sister (I assume) has a family of a dozen poults that follow her across the yard once every three days or so.

The humming birds discovered two new feeders in less than forty five minutes, the seed feeder however hung in disuse for nearly a week before being discovered. Hawks with four foot wingspans, ravens, doves, and an incredible diversity of lizards occupy this land. Myriad spiders, moths, scorpions, and flies find their way into my home, ultimately trapped on sticky boards.

While I am an avid hiker, backpacker, and wilderness explorer, I have to admit to being somewhat challenged in the transition to a home in this desert biome. I am daily reminded how cities filled with concrete, pavement, invasive species, and manicured lawns have nearly completely eliminated the original, native species. I have not seen a black widow spider in Phoenix since the first year my parents and brother moved there in 1986, and never saw a scorpion. Yet here, in Cascabel, both are daily visitors to both the inside and outside of this abode. I may be a member of the species that can dominate with tools, vehicles, and weapons on the environment, but when it is just me, my hands and feet and nothing more, I am the one who is vulnerable in this complex ecosystem. Far from the lush water way of the 1800s, the San Pedro river valley remains a reminder of a world that was … and we hope, will continue to be.

Last night was met with a very sad event. I fear my bug (glue) traps are a bit overzealous, having trapped a bat. Following advise by my neighbor Gilbert from a few weeks ago, I applied olive oil as an anti-goo agent. I was able to free this inadvertent visitor to my home by applying light pressure to each of his limbs using a ceramic chop stick. It took about 45 minutes in all. He (or she) was exhausted once free, and fell to sleep in the palm of my gloved hand.

Following instructions I found on-line, I fabricated an enclosure from a cardboard box, with a warm water bottle in one corner and cloth to line the interior and sides.

She was reluctant to release my glove, but I coaxed her into the corner of the box where she wrapped her body around the bottle and fell to sleep. He woke to preen himself of the goo and oil, and was eager to drink from the water-milk-sugar-salt solution I prepared delivered in the fibers of an artist’s paintbrush. I could see and hear this tongue lapping the solution, like a very small dog. Four full brushes, and he was no longer interested.

Roughly two hours later, at 12:30 pm, she crawled out of a hole in the box I thought too small, and rested on the outside of the box, next to my bed. I lifted the box, he flopped around on the floor and then quickly took flight. I opened the door and out she went!

I am reunited with home ownership, in a most robust manner.

The french drain attached to the clothes washing machine was totally clogged, causing most of the water in the washer to shoot out of the connection for what was likely an under-sink garbage disposal. We learned the gas range and stove were never converted to propane, long yellow flames and black soot on the bottom of all pots and pans tell-tail signs of something not quite right. And tonight, our third in this new home, the winds drove the branches of the mesquite trees against the galvanized steel roof, scratching and screeching until I realized neither Colleen nor I would ever sleep. At 2:30 AM I pulled on my work pants, shirt, and boots and grabbed a tree saw from the tool bin. I carefully leaned the extension ladder against the large wood perimeter of the otherwise all steel frame and for an hour trimmed the trees that line the house on three sides.

The joy of owning a house again.

For the past three years, since my return to the United States from South Africa, I have been searching for a place to call home. This has taken me from city to town to relative isolation, a study in the complexity of the definition of home and who I am.

If it were as simple as “I am a city person” or “I am a country person” then the path would be relatively easy to follow. But when I find joy in live music venues, a certain pleasure in hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and delight in live theater, I cannot say that cities do not offer a draw.

In those places where humans are as scarce as animals are in the city, I find that I open, my senses return to their full capacity. No longer am I tuning out, rather, I am actively tuning in, seeking, engaging, and absorbing all that is given. Bird calls, the rustle of debris with a gust of wind; movement of every mammal, small, medium, or scary is a reminder that I am a part of something that I cannot control nor can it be defined by measures of glass, steel, and concrete.

In the confine of a single month I was simultaneously envisioning myself in a large, warehouse studio in downtown Phoenix and a straw bail house past the high desert town of Oracle, two places so much opposites that I questioned how I could be attracted to both. Proximity to my parents, brother, and airport drew me to Phoenix while the passion that my partner Colleen and I share for the wild places, the splendor of dark night skies, and a craving for an analog community told me to wait … just wait … until it all comes together and feels right.

Through circumstances too complex to describe in this immediate story, I found myself in Cascabel, a place where ranchers, New York escapees, university professors, wild life conservationists, an astrophysicist, archaeologists, a medical professional and boat builder, bird watchers, artisans, and a filmmaker have each arrived through their own, non-linear paths. In Cascabel I found a personal connection to both land and people that feels rare in this digital world. In Cascabel, I finally found home.

The property is seventeen acres of mesquite forest and another forty that includes the confluence of Hot Springs wash and the San Pedro river. This second parcel will immediately move into the protective care of a conservation association. The house is a former mill that for a half dozen years in the 1990s generated mesquite wood products. Open, spacious, and naturally lit from all sides, it is a place that will never let you forget you are a part of something much bigger, just outside.

The San Pedro river valley is the longest undammed river in the American Southwest, with a diversity of mammals greater than anywhere in North America (or at least, that is what I have read). Some 350 species of migratory birds pass through twice each year, more than 500 including those that call this place home. Javelina (Peccary), deer, fox, skunk, coyote, mountain lion and an occasional black bear leave footprints for us to follow, a puzzle whose playing pieces change each day. I look forward to sharing with Colleen morning trail runs across gullies, down ravines, into the foothills of wilderness. On weekends, we will travel further, on foot, into the places you simply cannot find saddled atop a 4×4 nor fully engage from the air.

Most of all, after eight years on the road, most everything I own in storage, I look forward to wall lined with books, the rich sound of my home theater, and a place to explore working with wood, clay, fabric, and metal. It is time for the persistent digital interfaces to be set aside so that we can once again recall what it means to disengage and just … be.

Welcome to the Towering House of Cascabel! We hope you will visit soon, and stay for a while.