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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> The key is not the ground but the shade. Mesquite trees are well
> adapted here. They shade the ground, whether that ground is covered
> with grass or gravel.

Therein lies the whole secret.  As pointed out people lived in the desert
for many thousands of years before air conditioning.  They did it by
adopting to the weather and available water.  In the valley floor in winter,
into the hills in summer.  Houses that were just a roof in the summer that
gave shade and allowed unhindered passage of breezes.  The afternoon siesta
that we like to deride so much is another adoption.  The use of air
conditioning has overridden the knowledge of place and human preferences
have tried very hard to make all places as much as possible like all other
places.

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html