Iris in Bloom

Irrigation has reclaimed desert lands, the fields are green with growing crops and the air is heavy with evaporated mois-ture. The music of insects and the noise of the tractor form a summertime theme song.

In higher elevations the fruit trees are loaded with fruit beginning to ripen. In the mountains, where so many people go to escape the heat of lower lands, there is a merry wel-come in the sound of the trout streams, and a promise of rest and relaxation in the murmur of the pines.

There is drama in the infrequent summer storms that come in from the south. The thunderheads build up like giant castles, white and billowy, in the blue sky and when they merge to form a threatening sky, the rain comes in torrents and the thunder and lightning shake the very earth with fury.

Summer storms lack the placidity of storms in other sea-sons, but they do not lack in beauty.