Farewell to the Ironwood

 Another week of development on the desert saw the complete encirclement of the project by a curtained chain link fence, which is used primarily for the prevention of dust.  The tamping down of dust is the reason why all construction projects here require an elevated water tank on site, and a water sprayer that can travel on rough terrain.

The fence now came all the way up to the edge of the wash. I made a foray to the Ironwood on off hours. I saw the fence ten week away. No longer was the dry wash a refuge. At least it was outside the fence. I figured my favorite areas would be untouched. 

Not to be, it turns out. A couple days ago, after avoiding the site for over a week, I went down and saw the new developments. The crew had been doing some of work out by Pima Road, This is why the small earth mover had plowed through the dry wash a couple weeks ago. I had hoped it would be the last of that, especially after the fence and the curtain went up. 

But from my last visit I saw everything had changed. The natural causeway upon which I used to saunter, while rabbits dodged into the bushes, and the roadrunner skipped ahead towards the Ironwood, was destroyed. It had been sliced though sideways in the most brutal way, like a breach in a levee four feet deep, by the new trench road from the construction site (through an opening in the fence) towards the corner of Pima Road. No longer would I be able to follow the path I used to. It will never be restored. I had no idea how this will affect the drainage when a heavy rain comes. But the brush is gone. No rabbits there. To access the Ironwood I would have to leap down into the trench and cross it, and climb back up on the other side of the now severed natural causeway.

I don't think I'll go back there any time soon. Maybe ever. It has been cut off from me. I accept this. I accept it was time to let it go. 

I can access it through the back way, swinging far out. onto the State Trust property. But I will not do so. It is too near the construction site. And when the property development is done, I think there will be a public trail going right next to it. 

I turns out all of this development is actually to create a small lake. The lake is a holding pond for drainage to protect the ball field they are building down near Bell Road. Most of the property is being developed nearby not for the lake, but for a twenty-foot wide access road that is required to allow city crews to undertake routine maintenance.