I was walking one morning and discovered in an old sycamore snag, this entrance to a Gila woodpecker nest. The birds are opportunists and will dig out rotten bark to make a soft, protective nest for their young. What struck me about this opening, though, were the number of false starts that surround it. The…
This picture is on my computer screen saver right now. It’s not an extraordinary photograph but it contains everything I like: a coaster for my coffee, a cup with cats on it, light for reading, and an image-within-an-image of sunshine. When I view it, I enjoy its textures: the roughness of the sandstone block, the…
Several years ago I was privileged to be part of a group that did volunteer gardening at a former artist’s home called Eliphante. It wasn’t easy to get to. Here you see us pulling across on a rope tow, from the little town of Cornville in Arizona. For 28 years, Eliphante was the home for artists…
This is one determined, retired school bus, pulling that old pickup along behind. It’s almost as though the decorations of new paint on the bus counterbalance the lack of paint on the truck. I can see in my mind’s eye the fun it must have been to inscribe all of those circles. Now I wish I…
What is interesting about double rainbows, like this one I caught over Sedona, Arizona, is that the second rainbow is reversed. It starts with red and progresses to violet on the other side. The second is also softer in hue, and very rare. They just don’t occur frequently. The second rainbow reminds me of quiet people, those…
My parents and their parents were children of the Depression. They saved string, wore hand-me-down clothes, and ate left-overs–ALL of them! A favorite expression was “Making Do.” Native American families before the age of supermarkets and department stores did the same thing. In this picture you’ll see, on the right, a healthy agave cactus. Vivid…
I’m a crocheter rather than a knitter, but this exuberant bundle caught my eye when I visited a yarn shop in Jerome, Arizona. And then I realized if I bought it, I’d have to keep it that way forever, never made into a project. Because, can you imagining unraveling a piece of work if you…
Can you tell what this thing is? I couldn’t either, but it looked cool. I was spending the afternoon with a friend at the University of Michigan Property Disposition Department, 41 million square feet of warehouse space filled with a few odds and ends. There were the expected 16 dozen used clay-colored steel case files…
Old historic buildings in Sedona were often constructed of red sandstone. And skilled craftsmen paid attention to the type red sandstone that they used, for the sandstone was formed by inland seas that rose and retreated. And each time the seas receded, a different type of sandstone was built. One sediment layer was formed in thin brittle…
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…