We had one glorious day of rain! Each day since, promising piles of thunderheads have sailed in from the Southeast, but they have no flotilla following. Instead they drag behind them, like a raggedy bridal train, a thin cloud cover reminiscent of dingy, cotton batting. Occasionally, a few spectacularly large drops fall and we threaten to measure our rainfall in the time honored Arizona way, by measuring the distance between droplets.
But it did rain! And there's a cool breeze blowing in the evening, the trees and plants are perkier, and optimist that I am, I know there will be more. It's rained all around us so our turn will come up again. Won't it?
I had a birthday last week and my Mom, the Wise Old Owl gave me an interesting gift.
This is a salt crystal lamp made from salt formed hundreds of millions of years ago at the foothills of the Himalayas, when salt lakes dried up. The red coloration comes from iron and the yellow from manganese. My lamp is about eleven inches high and made from a rough piece of salt crystal, but they can and do carve and polish the salt crystal into shapes as well.
The salt crystal is said to absorb moisture from the air and the warmth of the light bulb causes a release of the moisture along with negative ions. The atmosphere around waterfalls and after thundershowers is filled with negative ions, and many people feel they are healthful.
Be that as it may, this is a pretty lamp, and Roo is going to love having it as a nightlight when she spends the night with me.
