I think just about everyone ’round these parts felt the four inches of rain Pueblo received during last August’s monsoon was welcomed relief from the ongoing drought. Prior to the late summer rains, a scant three inches of rain had fallen in Pueblo County through July.

One of the by-products of all that late summer moisture: tumbleweeds. And I mean a lot of tumbleweeds. As in, “I’ve not seen this many tumbleweeds ever.”

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The dogs and I take our daily constitutional out at Lake Pueblo’s Redgate trails. And of late, amongst the arroyos out there, it’s not uncommon to find huge deposits of these buggers that run 30-40 feet long and five or six feet feet deep. Sometimes the winds will stack them up 15 feet high along a canyon wall. I’ve been taking the dogs out there for nearly eight years and I’ve never seen as many tumbleweeds as I have the past couple months.