One day, while pulling my car into our garage, something grabs my attention at the edge of the ravine just east of our house.
Our ranch styled house, protected from the elements by a sloped, red tile roof, is made of slump brick, painted white. We built our dream house in a lovely neighborhood at the end of a quiet cul du sac, figuring this to be a safe place for children to run out to play with neighboring kids—and happily, the couple next door have four, all of whom mesh congenially with our three, and though David, being so much younger, is like their mascot, all seven become fast friends.
Will and I chose this particular lot with thoughts of breathing in peaceful views of blue skies overlooking the natural beauty of a rugged mountain range while relaxing in our back yard pool. This diving pool is surrounded by white slump planters, overflowing with multi-colored flowers, umbrella'd by palm trees, swaying with the breeze.
If you stand at the far end of our kitchen you'll see a 'wall' of floor to ceiling windows on either side of an arcadia door. Please open this sliding glass door and step out onto the covered patio, shaped as long as it's wide before stretching past its overhang and reaching all around the pool. Though the covered portion of this patio is made of cement, Kool Deck surrounds our pool, protecting tender soles, big and small, from burning on pavement so hot as to fry eggs 'neath the sun.
Now, look beyond the lawn (which borders three sides of the pool and planters) and to the right to see a wooden play structure so sturdy as to accommodate children of all ages—I mean, whom amongst us doesn't love to climb and swing. :)
Surrounding our desert oasis you'll find a variety of flowering bushes (I sure do love flowers!), butting up against a five-foot tall, white slump block wall, built to code around yards with pools. Beyond that wall, check out tree tops of our small citrus orchard, comprised of four orange and two grapefruit trees. Rounding out the acre of this little mecca we call home is the half court I hired a guy to pour to surprise my quartet of basketball crazed guys.
As it's often too hot to shoot baskets for very long, a net is installed on the Kool Deck, near the shallow end of the pool, extending the hours that our sons, their friends and Will alternate running up and down the half court and shooting baskets, wet and wild. If you've begun to surmise that our kids, the four next door and an assortment of school buds grew up in paradise, you'd be right.
In case you're looking for the tennis court, well, it's next door, and our congenial neighbors offer us carte blanche. So is there any wonder why I call our house the kids' private resort, complete with me as concierge :)
At this point, having shown you around our back yard and beyond, let's take a giant leap over the house.
Okay! Good job!
Now that we're standing solidly in the middle of the semi-circular, granite driveway, let's face the facade of our dream house, so your eye can sweep over the landscape leading toward our front door. First you'll spy five, multi-trunked, ficus nitida trees, each atop a small, grassy knoll. Then, check out the variety of lush palms, a profusion of hot pink bouganvilla and a line up of oleander bushes, dotted with bright pink blossoms. Next, turn your attention toward the red tiled walkway (bordered by flower beds of lantana, both purple and gold), leading up to a pair of tall, square-shaped, white, slump block pillars (Will you build me a house, all painted white, cute and clean and shiny and bright—sung by Ado Annie in Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma) flanking a pair of twin, over-sized, blond oak doors As your eye sweeps across the front of our house from left to right, you'll focus on a series of picture windows, the first of which looks into our guest room. Then, as your eye marches forward along the tiled walkway and up three steps toward that pair of oversized doors, look to the right to see two bay windows, the first peering into the living room, the second into our dining room, and finally, as your eyes rest on a solid white, slump block wall, you'll be looking at the side of our garage You see, while designing our five bedroom, four bath, dream house, we didn't want our garage door facing front, suggesting that we can't drive straight into it from the street.
I guess you could say our u-shaped driveway resembles a y in that we drive from the cul du sac, past the east side of the house, before making a sharp left into the garage. BTW—there's method to my madness in describing this to you :)
In fact, let's take a moment, so I can clarify why that's true: Whenever we enter our two car garage (never thought we'd own three cars, much less four!) from inside the house and push the button on the wall to open the door, here's what we see beyond the cars parked inside: We see a square-shaped block of cement, which had been poured on the ground directly outside of the garage. No problem, right? Well, no problem, except for one missing fact: This pavement—not much longer than a car length—ends at a sheer drop into a rocky ravine, suggesting that it takes concentration to back out of the garage or else ... well, you get the picture, right? Amazing what we choose to do for aesthetics! You know, like young women tottering around in six inch heels!
At this point, it's time for a riddle:
What's another word for ravine?
Though rain in the desert is rare, our climate offers up torrential storms, now and then. One day last week, I was drenched to the skin, running a short distance to my car. With so much water swirling around, signs are posted on streets that dip, cautioning drivers to choose a different route or chance the car being swept off the road—and as more than one friend has paid the price of ignoring those signs, you can believe me when I say that during torrential downpours, water, rushing powerfully down rugged mountain terrain, washes everything in sight out of its path, and eventually, over time, rushing rivers, momentary though they may be, erode away at the earth as to create a ravine, which desert dwellers call a wash.
Anyway, one day, while heading up the east side of our driveway toward the garage, something grabs my attention at the edge of the wash, so after parking my car with care, I walk across the cement block, peer into the wash and can't believe my eyes!
