With Afghanistan collapsing frighteningly fast, I really needed this opportunity to get out of the house, out of my head, into the minutiae of baby leaves and flowers, butterflies and cactus needles.

And we had some extra special visitors on this walk.

Curve-billed Thrasher

Gila Monster

With Arizona in the middle of a historically wet monsoon, the desert is sucking up the moisture and greening up, tall green grasses on every roadside, and flowers everywhere on the hillsides of Tucson Mountain Park.

Barrel Cactus

It was a beautiful day (when we weren’t dodging mountain bikers) for getting down on my hands and knees and taking closeups of little bitty flowers.

… and broader vistas, and trees, and lichens….

And at the very end of the hike, the hardest thing of all to capture on film … I think I finally managed to snap the shutter at the very moment when a sulfur butterfly was in a very seldom state of rest!