My undeveloped desert in the last bit of the old ranch. The property boundary is marked by a barbed wire fence that is at least fifty years old, predating the subdivision. The paths where I walk are remnants of the cattle paths. It is the last, lowest corner as the old property, which once stretched north and east into the McDowell Mountains. It is the least desirable for development, and it hits the part that was ceded to create the giant power lines that cross the valley here.
The wash is the lowest bit of drainage. Looking out to the south I see a flat scablands that has been scoured by many rains and floods. The desert blooms with vegetation and birds here. It is boom or bust. One day a flood will come down off the McDowells and overwhelm the creeks, coming off the parking lots of the shopping center upstream. One day the Ironwood and and the Saguaro will be swept away. It is the cycle of the decades and the centuries.
Tomorrow I think they begin reclaiming some of it for the park, which has a lake of more than acre, as I learned from a friendly neighbor a few days ago, which flagged me down because she thought I was the project architect. It was the clipboard I was carrying.
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