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By Root 396 0

care, written by Neal Pronek, advises that it’s good to leave an assortment of shells of various sizes lying around just in case. Pronek waxes mostly pragmatic in his book, explaining for example that hermit crabs “will eat anything they find, from hard dog biscuits to a dead fish…where certain items are concerned, the deader the better,” and also warning, “Don’t expect an about-to-molt crab that loses a leg on Tuesday to pop up with a new one after a molt on Wednesday.” But on the topic of hermit crabs stranded without shells, Pronek can hardly contain his alarm: “They’ll start having nervous breakdowns….They want those shells, and they’ll do everything in their power to make sure that they don’t get cut off from them. Pinch, scratch, smash, kill—whatever.” Not something to mess around with. Since Buster started showing molting inclinations, we’ve sorted through our shell collections from every vacation in recent history (we knew we were saving these things for some good reason) and pulled out the cream of the crop. We believe we have got the situation in hand.

But one can’t be sure. In the chapter called “Diseases and Ailments,” Mr. Pronek offers darkly: “All of their ills boil down to the mysterious croak; the crab is outwardly well one day, dead the next.” And so, while I can say that Buster remains well at this writing, around here we take nothing for granted.

After two days of gentle winter rains, the small pond behind my house is lapping at its banks, content as a well-fed kitten. This pond is a relative miracle. Several years ago I talked a man I knew who was handy with a bulldozer into damming up the narrow wash behind my house. This was not a creek by any stretch of imagination—even so thirsty an imagination as mine. It was only a little strait where, two or three times a year when the rain kept up for more than a day, water would run past in a hurry on its way to flood the road and drown out the odd passing Buick. All the rest of the time this little valley lay empty, a toasted rock patch pierced with cactus.

I cleared out the brush and, with what my bulldozer friend viewed as absurd optimism, directed the proceedings. After making a little hollow, we waterproofed the bottom and lined the sides with rocks, and then I could only stand by to see what would happen. When the rains came my pond filled. Its level rises and falls some, but for years now it has remained steadfastly pond, a small blue eye in the blistered face of desert.

That part was only hydrology and luck, no miracle. But this part is: within hours of its creation, my pond teemed with life. Backswimmers, whirligig beetles, and boatmen darted down through the watery strata. Water striders dimpled the surface. Tadpoles and water beetles rootled the furry bottom. Dragonflies hovered and delicately dipped their tails, laying eggs. Eggs hatched into creeping armadas of larvae. I can’t imagine where all these creatures came from. There is no other permanent water for many miles around. How did they know? What jungle drums told them to come here? Surely there are not, as a matter of course, aquatic creatures dragging themselves by their elbows across the barren desert just in case?

I’m tempted to believe in spontaneous generation. Rushes have sprung up around the edges of my pond, coyotes and javelinas come down to drink and unabashedly wallow, nighthawks and little brown bats swoop down at night to snap insects out of the air. Mourning doves, smooth as cool gray stones, coo at their own reflections. Families of Gambel’s quail come each and every spring morning, all lined up puffed and bustling with their seventeen children, Papa Quail in proud lead with his ridiculous black topknot feather boinging out ahead of him. Water lilies open their flowers at sunup and fold them, prim as praying hands, at dusk. A sleek male Cooper’s hawk and a female great horned owl roost in the trees with their constant predators’ eyes on dim-witted quail and vain dove, silently taking turns with the night and day shifts.

For several years that Cooper’s hawk was the steadiest