As you drive through Oak Creek Canyon, you’ll see a sign for Ensinoso Park. There, if you stop your car and walk down the hill you’ll find this secret place. I’ve visited when it is dressed in winter white and fall gold, but nothing is so startling as the passionate green of summer, when the…
It was a western facing window in the afternoon. You can tell that by the sunflowers turning their faces toward the sun just as little Ellf was. Mac, on the other hand, was staring drowsily at the photographer, me. The two found comfort in the warm sun and in the closeness of each other. That…
In the back room of a dressmakers shop lived a row of paper patterns. Some had yellowed with age, but the fingers of the seamstress unerringly drew the pattern she wanted from the collection. She knew them all by heart. They were familiar friends. We all have our own row of familiar patterns. I know…
I found this hanging basket in one of my favorite places in the world, Jerome, Arizona. Here magenta petunias hang out in perfect harmony with bright red geraniums. When I was a teenager, I agonized over whether parts of my outfit color-matched. Red did not “go” with pink and definitely not with magenta! Since I’ve grown…
It was a cold, sunlit morning in November when I took this photograph of the crystal water at Red Rock Crossing. Behind me were the magnificent totems of Cathedral Rock, but I chose to look down, instead. The soft sandstone had been worn smooth by the creek that ebbs and flows according to the season,…
What is striking to me about this picture of surf hitting rocks in Maine is that the rock, solid granite, has been worn smooth by the constant plunging wear of the water, advancing, retreating, advancing again. You could put your hand to this stone, as I did, and feel a surface polished as smooth as…
I arose early, seeking to experience the dock in the solitude of a Sunday morning. Later, there would be boats moored to each side, and fisherman throwing out a line, and honeymooning couples strolling arm-in-arm along its length. But for now it was quiet, content, satisfied in just being. Sometimes we feel like a dock,…
What a marvelous tiny house this was, hidden in the forest ferns! In my mind’s eye I miniaturized it like Alice in Wonderland, making it just the size for forest gnomes hiding among the rocks. I tried to spot them, patiently waiting for me to leave so they could go on about their daily business…
FIRE IN BROKEN WATER is the 3rd book in the Pegasus Quincy mystery series. I wrote the book to explore the water wars that are still ongoing in Arizona. But it’s a mystery, too! Including a prize Friesian stallion, a child’s sled that may be a key to a deadly arson fire, and a clan…
It was low tide on a sunny day, and we ventured far out on the rocks, searching the life left by the waves. Hidden in the cracks, just visible here, we found thousands of tiny white mussels, fed by the surging waves that were channeled into the crevices between the granite boulders. How did these…