Monday, June 15, 2020

Walking south from Hereford Bridge

Susan and I met just before 8am to walk the dogs.  It was already warm, but a gentle breeze covered the river area.  A photographer and her subject were near the trailhead, but no one else was nearby.

We both  noticed how much water had been lost since we last walked this area a week age.  Parts of the river are now very dry, and the green algae that once covered the surface now blankets the dry river bed in soft, dry algae.  Deeper sections are now getting smelly and buggy.  There's still plenty of good water for the dogs to drink, and the low water is easier for us to walk in, but the water level is clearly dropping fast.

We stopped at the beaver dam.  Even here the water level is low, but the river bottom here is so silty and slippery, we dared not go any farther.  We turned around here just as we heard a helicopter fly in the west meadow, flying low as if to round up people below.  It was a county sheriff helicopter.  Curiosity got the best of us, so we ran out to the trail's edge to watch the maneuver.  We saw dark-clothed people on the ground walking south.  Were these USBP agents, or illegals trying to run away?  The helicopter was there for a while before it finally flew back north.

This kind of activity was quite common when we first got here in late 2004.  Seeing illegals walk across the border at night and then walk north on our residential streets was  quite common.  Not so much now.  Lately the activity along the border seems to have increased.

Susan said we had a 40% chance of rain, and sure enough, clouds did begin to billow and at 1:53pm it began to rain and rain hard.  This lasted for 30 minutes.  Then, on my drive into town at 3:30pm, it rained in town.  The official start of the monsoon season is June 15, so this event was apropo.  The sky was grey overcast the rest of the day, but nothing else happened.

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Global cases: 8,067,154
Global deaths: 438,773
US cases: 2,176,583 (+15,185
US deaths: 118,179 (+326)
AZ cases: 36,705 (+1,014) (221 in Cochise County)


AZ deaths: 1194 (+8)

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