OK, I’ll admit it: as much as I was cursing the heat back in early September I miss it when it’s gone. Walking outside around the pool on the chilliest night we’ve had so far this fall and feeling the cold concrete beneath my feet and hearing the A/C units in adjacent houses blowing heat, not cool air, in makes me long for nights with concrete still warm beneath my feet and the sound of A/C units humming away to cool the houses around us. I miss the late-night dips in my pool and the symphony of crickets and heat bugs. I miss the warm yellow moons. But I also understand that if there were no Arizona winter I wouldn’t be able to miss the heat or play golf in 75-degree temps (as I plan to do this coming “Black Friday”). The Anglo-Catholic in me councils everything in moderation and the need for balance in life, and as most folks around here will tell you, they don’t live around here for the summers, but for the winters.

That was quite a rain storm we got this past weekend. Here in Gilbert, the official total was a little over 2.5 inches of rain – some areas around us got as much as four. Considering that the Valley of the Sun only gets around eight inches total in a year tells you how much of a historic even this was. I can tell you that driving an hour’s south of here there was a lot of water in the desert which you can never say is a bad thing.