It’s the long July 4 weekend here in the Valley of Sun and the weather is about as one would expect it to be. The monsoon of last week has departed, leaving us with temps in high 100s, the pool temperature is back to 92, and life is good.

One of the quiet pleasures of the weekend is to have my morning coffee at the Tiki bar. The heat hasn’t come on yet, and it’s a joy to watch the ubiquitous house sparrows and the mourning doves and foo-foo birds (I’m not sure exactly what their name is but that’s what I call them) come by for a drink in the swimming pool fountain. I noticed this morning that the mesquite tree in our backyard has gotten so big that I can look up from the Tiki bar and see mesquite branches reaching over to create a near-canopy of green above me. Time to get Carmelo and the boys busy: you don’t want a monsoon storm or – gasp! – a microburst felling branches on top of the Tiki bar – not after all the hard work I put in last summer to replace its thatch roof.

My favorite time of day out on the back patio is dusk, when everything is kinda sorta all shades of gray and the heat of the day is starting to subside. I’m really pleased with the redesign of the backyard and reducing the amount of lawn that needed to be watered. The dichondra clover I’ve planted still has a way to go in spots, but all seems to be according to plan: by this time next year it will look as if the Tiki bar is floating in a Sargasso Sea of clover. Not only will it be pleasing to the eye, but walking on it will make you think you’re walking on a carpet of soft green. It will be lovely.

I’m really pleased with the way our back yard has turned out. We had a nice landscape to start with when we bought the house thirteen years ago, but if I do say myself, I’ve been able to turn it into quiet and peaceful place with happy colors and well-chosen desert foliage plants in virtually every color to make it a refuge from all the stresses and strains of daily life. Having lost Mom a couple of weeks ago, I’ve come to rely on the back patio as a place where I can I find some sense of tranquility and enjoy the results of all the work that we’ve done to create this little postage stamp of an oasis in the desert.