Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the desert.

The brief false autumn.

All gone now.

Those blessed early cool nights after the usual slog of summer.

But there's still another month of desert summertime, according to the official calendar.

And one mild week does not an autumn make.

But it was beautiful for those couple of days and nights.

All the windows open on the west side, anyway, the shady side.

Nothing like a pleasant breeze while the coffee maker burbles.

Well, here's an important update if anybody's keeping track,

the Raven with the strange voice, the one I call Weird Annie.

Well, there are several more of her kind, all grown up now, and they've inherited that same distinctive call.

So a Joshua tree full of these particular large black corvids means a whole chorus of weird Annie's back-asswards Ravencall. Unnatural selection, Nature's Joker.

A-kuhnob! Yeah, they're all just like her, constantly outraged, hopping up and down, absolutely zero chill, utterly indifferent to me, even when I

walk right up to the tree holding my phone up. Talk into this, how's it going, weird Annie?

I see you got your whole brood over here. Nothing.

Snow flurries in the Sierra,

monsoon floods

in Moab, tourists

washed away by the

swollen creeks, always

...