All my bags are packed I’m ready to go.

Why is it everything in my head starts out with a song?  But yes, we are packed.  The house is ready to be closed up; the shutters ready to go down.  I’ll make one last cup of our coffee, one for the road, as it were, and then we’re ready to hit the road for our trek through California and Oregon.  (Scheduled stops are posted on the website.)

It’s a beautiful early April morning in Tucson.  The orange blossoms are in full bloom, and so there’s that special desert perfume outside in the yard.  The pots we planted earlier are full of geraniums, petunias, and snap dragons in full bloom, too.  Does it sounds as though I’m reluctant to leave here?  I am, because even after thirty years of living in Seattle and more than ten years of splitting our time between both places, I am still a desert rat at heart.

I love the desert.  I love the desert plants.  I don’t think there’s anything quite as miraculous as the ocotillo which may look as dead as a doornail, to quote Charles Dickens, but within twenty-four hours of a drenching rain, the dead stick branches will be covered with a bottle brush of green leaves topped with bright red flowers.  It’s not just a spring and autumn thing with ocotillos.  It’s whenever it rains.

And then there’s the palo verde with its bring yellow flowers which turn the desert a vibrant gold in late May and early June.

And there’s nothing quite as wonderful as seeing winter-blackened mesquite put out their bright green leaves in March and April, unless, of course it’s the brilliant chartreuse of the stately cottonwood trees leafing out along the San Pedro River.

And what about saguaros with their crowns of white flowers and dark red fruit?  Or the lavender plumes of ironwood.

By now, I guess you’re getting the picture because there’s a lot about the desert to love.

The last thing I did this morning was to go out and check on the agave in the back yard.  We called them “century plants” when I was growing up.  Rumor had it that that’s how long they lived before they bloomed once and then died, shedding seeds to make a whole pack of little baby agaves.  I think the time frame is closer to 75 years, but let’s not quibble.

The agave I’m referring to, our pet agave, is in the near back yard.  Several years ago when it was much smaller, a baby agave as it were, it had to be uprooted from where it was–most likely because of the well drilling project.  At the time, we happened to have a large metal bucket–a five gallon rusty old bucket that looked like it had strayed into the yard from a mining operation somewhere.  So we filled the bucket with potting soil, stuck the baby agave in there, and let time pass–seven or eight years so far.

At this point the agave is about five feet in diameter.  It’s not eyeball height, yet, but it’s close. It’s thriving in there so much that the roots have poked out through the bottom of the bucket.  Once the agave is gone, the bucket will be, too.

I went out this morning to make sure it isn’t going to bloom in our absence.  So far there’s no sign of a sprout coming up in the center, and I’m glad of that because I don’t want to miss it.

Almost 40 years ago, at another house in Tucson, I had an agave that bloomed right outside the kitchen window.  It was an amazing process to watch that thick sprout shoot up from the middle of the plant, rising a good five to six inches every day.  The flowers bloomed and seed pods were still on it when we sold the house and moved away.  I didn’t stay long enough to see it give up the ghost and fall over.  I didn’t stay long enough to collect some of those seeds and nurture them into a new plant.

But the pet agave in the back yard?  Trust me, some of those seeds are coming with me whenever it does get around to blooming.  Just not this year.  Not yet.  I want to be here when it happens.