Tag Archive | Topaz

Eyes of Wonder

Aug30

I’m grateful we finally got some rain. Yesterday it was overcast all day, drizzled off and on, and the clouds gave a good shower midafternoon. Not enough to make puddles, but enough to make the top layer of clay almost muddy. Little Wren shivered in her Thundershirt and wanted to cuddle all afternoon as I frantically plowed through R.F. Kuang’s surprising, delightful, allegorical, and ultimately very disturbing novel Babel before the digital library reclaimed it today.

I was grateful to wake this morning to sunshine on a cool early autumn landscape with clouds climbing the mountains on their way out of town.

I finally steeled myself to check on the potato harvest in the garden beds, and wasn’t too disappointed. I dug one plant’s yield from each of the small red potatoes and the Yukon golds. The red potato gave a pretty good harvest, and the first gold one did not, so I pulled a second gold and got a sizable handful. Both these potatoes did pretty well considering the grasshopper plague that never let the red ones flower at all, and only allowed a few of the golds to bloom, before demolishing the foliage. I was surprised to dig up what I presume was a skin from the seed potato of the bountiful Yukon gold.

I finally got a good look at the little silver stray that’s been streaking away after only a ghostly glimpse for a couple of months. Or, I think it’s the same cat, a pretty little thing. Topaz was fixated out the window when I walked by and when I stopped to stroke her she growled, but not at me. Only then did I look out and see what she was staring at, and who was staring back at her. It didn’t stay long: I was on my way to let Wren out, and thought it best to get it over with before Topaz wanted out again, to preclude a cat fight. The cat streaked through the fence and left Wren prancing at the gate. I have told Topaz many times since her dear brother’s untimely demise that if she wants another cat she can bring one home, but I guess not this one.

This morning we went for another ramble on soft damp ground through the cool woods, greeting trees we’d not seen for awhile.

We found ourselves at the North Pole, so named the first year I lived here when it designated the northern boundary. I’m grateful I was able to buy the field, forest, and canyon beyond after awhile, so now the North Pole marks the halfway point. We continued on until we came to the Survivor, and sat with her for awhile. She never ceases to amaze me, still living green nearly a century now since she resisted someone’s attempt to cut her up. I always ponder: did she fall over first, or did she get cut first and then fall over? Either way, she’s an inspiration to the power of stoic resistance and determined persistence. All the trees tell stories.

At the base of a decaying trunk, a baby piñon and an even younger juniper grow side by side in harmony.

We follow the course of a natural storm drain to slowly amble home. I’m grateful for the aimless nourishing hour we wandered the woods, remembering again connection, reflecting on those halcyon days when it was all so new. For decades with big dogs it was all new every carefree day. How much has changed, now carrying the weight of the new reich; through a darkening lens, yet still able to see with eyes of wonder so much beauty, and with such sweet, quiet little animal companions. Everything changes. 

A Different Harvest

Aug25
My tragic garlic harvest this year. They seemed to do so well for so long, then at the end they just gave up. You reap what you sow: I wonder if it was because I used bulbs from garlic I grew last year, and they just didn’t have the energy to grow big and strong. Next year, back to Territorial Seeds or a local organic grower. Of course, that’s really this year: the time to plant garlic is next month.

“How many times have you wondered why 44% of the country still supports the president as he directs soldiers to patrol selected cities, orders heavily armed masked men to snatch people off the street, causes prices to rise, gives tax cuts to billionaires, and ends health insurance for millions? That is a complicated question with no short answer, but one of the main reasons is that millions of Americans are hearing lies or don’t know what the president is actually doing … because much of the media has been silenced by or is fearful of Trump.

He knows where his loyal followers get their “news,” and he is making sure those organizations toe the MAGA line.

Trump’s manipulation can be felt from legacy media (see: CBS News and The Washington Post) to local television ownership consolidation to the burgeoning MAGA-mediasphere of podcasts and social media influencers. But it all starts where the press and the president are in each other’s presence on many if not most days.”

Dan Rather, Steady, August 22, 2025

I’ve harvested most of the slicer tomatoes prematurely, because now that the grasshoppers have demolished everything else I didn’t cover, they’re coming for the maters! I put the first haul into a brown paper bag a few days ago and they’re already glowing up with a little warm color.

Our “local” Denver 9 News is on the chopping block. Kyle Clark, the host of the best regional newscast I’ve ever encountered, is making clear to his viewers, objectively, that selling out to Fox isn’t a great idea. Television is inherently dangerous, as Jerry Mander points out in his first book, especially from a political point of view, because“it is the one speaking to the many.” His work was terribly historically informed and prescient, and it’s only gotten more so since this 1991 interview in The Sun Magazine.

“The fantasies of utopian existence promoted by proponents of the technological, industrial mode of life for the last one hundred years are now demonstrably false. That’s not what we got. What we got was alienation, disorientation, destruction of the planet, destruction of natural systems, destruction of diversity, homogenization of cultures and regions, crime, homelessness, disease, environmental breakdown, and tremendous inequality. We have a mess on our hands. This system has not lived up to its advertising; in developing a strategy for telling people what to do next, we first have to make that point. Life really is better when you get off the technological/industrial wheel and conceive of some other way. It makes people happier. It may not make them more money, but getting more money hasn’t worked out. Filling life with commodities doesn’t turn out to be satisfying, and most people know that.”

Jerry Mander, in conversation with Catherine Ingram

One nice harvest surprise was this handful of small russet potatoes, which grew from an organic grocery store potato that sprouted before I could use it. I stuck it in a tub of dirt in the early spring and it grew in the sunroom for a month before it could go outside. Despite predation, against the odds, it came to fruition.

It’s gone from bad to worse and we’ve been prey the whole time, utterly caught in the sticky web of technology and now unable to extricate ourselves. I’m as guilty as anyone, but I’m grateful that mindfulness practice is an antidote that helps me keep some attentional autonomy. As Mander says, television “is most efficient at centralized, top-down usage which imposes imagery and programs people accordingly. The imagery remains in them and then they imitate the imagery. It is a powerful brainwashing and homogenizing machine.”… (and now by extension most of what the internet offers)

Rocky Mountain beeplant is among the most underrated wildflowers, and one of the most spectacular. It’s also a mad bee magnet. I sow the seeds throughout the yarden at the end of summer, and hope for the best. What comes will come.

My voice feels like a cry in the dark. I struggle to nourish hopeful energy because the forecast trajectory is dismal, as laid out in this Bioneers podcast with Thom Hartmann, who “warns of the existential threat of a virulent new oligarchy: the third frontal assault by the ultra-wealthy in American history to use their concentrated economic power to seize maximum political power – and overthrow democracy once and for all.”

Two honeybees of distinctly different colors seem in conflict over a blossom…

Robert Reich names the current president as the culmination of these decades of staggering wealth inequality, explaining that Democrats failed during that time to take actions that could have reined in the power grab. His interpretation adds another nefarious facet to Hartmann’s theory, twisting the script so that the worst of the oligarchs now presents himself as the people’s savior. Reich suggests that it’s not too late, and that if Democrats (and Independents, I might add) would actually unify and undertake specific actions they could regain the reins of the country.

from Robert Reich, Sunday Thought
… but they seem to negotiate an agreement to share the abundant resources, neither taking more than they need and each getting enough.

We reap what we sow. Where we place our attention matters. For forty years Big Money have been sowing seeds that ultimately bloomed into Project 2025 and curried this regime to implement it. While most of the rest of us let our attention wander down the insidiously addictive techno-entertainment wormhole, we failed to notice the rug being slowly pulled out from under our relatively stable democracy. The deceit was intentional and highly effective.

My friend John was a passionate student of history. He knew whereof he spoke when he said, “We lived in the best times” — before the third wave of Oligarchy began to crest. Turns out history is relevant after all. I eschewed its study through all my school years but the more I learn of it now the more this current moment makes sense. When people ask me “How did we get here?” I can now say, “It’s complicated…” instead of throw up my hands in impossible confusion. As my understanding of the history of this country broadens beyond the founding fathers and fourth-grade lessons on Virginia’s conquerors, my despair softens into compassion, and I renew my commitment to mindfulness practice and the skills that continue to strengthen my resilience in this challenging political and social landscape. I’m happy to share.

It’s not all froglets all the time, there are still a few tadpoles left swimming around. But… it’s mostly froglets!

The little froglet in front looks like it’s missing its left eye–and possibly a leg. Amazing how it survives, against the odds, in a supportive, nurturing environment; a community of froglets standing together.
I grabbed the camera to catch these twins knowing I only had a second before they fled. I didn’t notice it was set to manual for moon photography, so the result was a study in whites. I’m grateful for the ready editing technology in the Photos software that enabled me to pull some color and definition out of a careless mistake. I’m grateful for resilience.

Good Neighbors

Aug18
I’m grateful the little bonsai rose is recovering from its grasshopper defoliation.
One day the froglets will grow big enough to eat this grasshopper, but for now there’s a curious equanimity in their encounter. May I bring the same attitude to neighbors who are so different from me.

The froglets are very good neighbors even though their neighborhood is getting crowded. I have to walk ever so carefully, even ten feet from the pond on the flagstone, to be sure I don’t step on one. They’re literally underfoot! They are tiny, and fragile, and not 100% coordinated yet, so their jumps can be feeble and a little wonky; and also, they don’t really understand about giant feet yet, that they need to get out of the way of shadows.

I keep intending to set some coins out around the edge of the pond for scale to show exactly how tiny they are. But for now I’ll just use a cat: the frog above is the same frog as the one below, on the pond edge, just to the left of the furry hip of Topaz.

You can see several stages of metamorphosis in this image, if you look closely at each tadpole and froglet.
(the next morning)

The best cheese sandwich of the weekend was warmed Brie, sliced homegrown cabbage and red onion, mayonnaise, and organic grape jelly on of course homemade sourdough.

It was a lovely weekend, with ample outside time and the barest hint of pre-fall in the air, a slight cessation of the brutal heat and a minute rise in humidity. Wildfires in this part of the state (the nation, the continent) are rapidly getting contained with a little help from the weather and a lot of effort by brave men and women who are good neighbors to all of us. Whether they left homes nearby me to fight these fires or left homes in another state, right now they are my neighbors. The littles and I enjoyed another stunning sunset with our good neighbors to the west, who came to say hello over the fence and lingered for awhile in companionable silence before going home for dinner.

Speaking of neighbors, many people aren’t aware of the shooting at the CDC a week ago last Friday; it wasn’t a mass casualty event so it didn’t generate sensational television coverage. “Only” one person was killed, a police officer. But it was a mass trauma event, for hundreds of CDC staff and their families, and thousands of people who work in public health. Our neighbors. A foremost epidemiologist, Katelynn Jetelina, discussed the attack and its ramifications for public health workers, the regime’s non-response, and how average Americans can demonstrate support for healthcare workers in this essential, and increasingly stressful and traumatizing, field of public service. It’s forty minutes of lucid and moving discussion. Many of my neighbors work in healthcare, a lot of them in our rural hospital system which is on the chopping block with upcoming cuts to Medicaid. Are any of your neighbors healthcare professionals? How can you show them some appreciation?

Speaking of good neighbors, I was grateful this morning to be invited onto a press call about the destruction of the Social Security Administration. My contribution followed former SSA chair Martin O’Malley’s chilling assessment of the regime’s efforts to demolish social security. You can watch the press conference here if you’d like to hear just how badly the regime has already damaged “the only agency in America that runs a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus,” and also hear a couple of regular folks talk about what social security means for them and their neighbors.

Can’t we all be good neighbors to each other? Planet Earth is our only neighborhood, for all of us, human and non-human alike.

This evening, I only counted a dozen tadpoles left in the water. I know there are more I didn’t see, but I saw just as many froglets in one square foot at the edge of the pond. I’m not fond of the algae, but the froglets are, so I’m not about to scoop it out. It’s an essential part of their neighborhood, which is all they have and all they know.

RX: Metamorphosis

Aug3

What a marvelous sight greeted me at the bottom of the stairs this morning! Topaz was watching a baby bull snake lying still on the floor. I only saw it when I took a step and it wiggled away. I fended off Wren and picked it up gently. It was so gentle and calm, and curled and crawled around my hand as I considered the best place to release it, but it never panicked or thrashed.

After I released it into the wood pile, where I hope it finds enough mice to remain there forever and live long and grow big, I came back inside and tried to put her collar on Topaz as she knelt at her food bowl, the way I often do. I reached around her neck with the bell and she jerked and flipped around wide-eyed. I tried again now that she knew it was just me, but she wrenched away; after I washed my hands she accepted the collar willingly as usual. I’m grateful for the little dose of wonder that started my day.

One reason I practice gratitude is because of my innate pessimism. Well, I can’t say innate in the sense that I was born with it, I’m not sure I was. But it came to me early through a series of prophetic dreams that started while I was still in single digits. So this article about likely societal collapse didn’t shock me as it might some of you, should you choose to read it. History shows that increasing wealth inequality consistently precedes collapse, contends economist and international relations expert Dr. Luke Kemp in his new book Goliath’s Curse, which analyzes 5000 years of human civilizations’ collapses.

“…as elites extract more wealth from the people and the land, they make societies more fragile, leading to infighting, corruption, immiseration of the masses, less healthy people, overexpansion, environmental degradation and poor decision making by a small oligarchy. The hollowed-out shell of a society is eventually cracked asunder by shocks such as disease, war or climate change.”

Last night was Zoom Cooking with Amy. We chose a simple pasta sauce made from sautéed zucchini, which we blended with some garlic, parmesan, salt&pepper of course, and a little pasta water. We spooned that into our bowls, topped with pasta and more parm, and I sautéed a handful of frozen snow peas from the spring garden in the hot zucchini pan.

Sound familiar? Kemp lays the imminent demise of our so-called civilization at the feet of “leaders who are ‘walking versions of the dark triad’ – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism”; and while he says that a fundamental transformation of society on a global scale could save our species, “the large, psychopathic corporations and [world leaders] which produce global catastrophic risk” make self-destruction more likely.

This reflects, to one degree or another, my fundamental world view since I was a child. It’s less popular and less acceptable than believing in aliens, so I don’t articulate it often. It’s something of a relief to read it so clearly outlined by a scholar of human cultural history.

Kemp suggests that “even if you don’t have hope, it doesn’t really matter. This is about defiance. It’s about doing the right thing, fighting for democracy and for people to not be exploited. And even if we fail, at the very least, we didn’t contribute to the problem.”

Hope is a conundrum for me. It can mean a passive wish for good things, but I prefer the interpretation of Joanna Macy, who died last month at 94, that hope is a verb, that how we live matters, and that this time in history is one of great unraveling and also of the potential for a Great Turning.

My life’s trajectory continues to lean into celebrating this fragile, spinning globe and all the Life that supports our tiny existence. It’s really a question of perspective, of world view: Domination or collaboration? Each of us chooses how to live, every living moment of every day.

Though it’s taking a lot longer than from tadpole to frog, I’m grateful for my own metamorphosis through the years. And grateful to photograph a fully formed froglet flying through the water—next challenge: film it.

A Quiet Day at Home

Jul30

I’ve found another way to use the last few drops of maple syrup that always linger in the bottle after you think it’s empty: it floats on the latté foam! A sweet treat, a small triumph.

I’m grateful for a quiet day at home with pretty clean air inside and out, for accomplishing some household projects inside and out, for tender connections with nature throughout the day.

We took a nice long ramble through the woods this evening, and found somewhere new. It’s a small thrill to find myself somewhere new in my old familiar forest.

This morning at the pond another something new, another small thrill: The first frog’s forelegs!

And this evening, something else new, a little meeting of the minds on the side of the pond. Look at these vastly different organisms all getting along despite belonging to three different phyla: the snail, Mollusca; the tadpole, Chordata; and the dragonfly nymph, Arthropoda. How is it we humans can’t get along better? We’re all the same, five levels down the animal classification tier from Phylum to the smallest division. As members of the same species, we have a lot more in common with each other than we have different.

I’m grateful for all that is good in my life, and all the gifts of this precious day that will never come again.

Legs!

Jul21

Let’s get the food shot out of the way first, because simple and delicious though this lunch was, it wasn’t the highlight of the day. Pretty much the same thing as the past two days, except with havarti instead of cheddar, no egg, and some chopped tomato and apricot included with the onion greens pesto, mayo, and bean mashup. I’m grateful I’ve learned that good food doesn’t have to be complicated, fancy, or difficult.

And in fire news, it was mostly cloudy with some drizzles today which must have helped the firefighters across the western slope a lot, and certainly made for a more comfortable day for those of us with challenging lungs.

But for today’s big JOY: I was beside myself this afternoon to discover that some of the tadpoles have actual legs! At last!

I needed a second opinion, so I asked Topaz to investigate since she could get closer to the water than I could. She confirmed my assessment, and suggested I bring down the husband camera.

There are two legged-ones who show up in this video, one near the beginning and one at the end. I might have missed another one or two…

Husband camera confirmed, and I was especially delighted to catch this one with just the bare beginnings of legs. Most of those I observed tonight, maybe three percent of all the tadpoles, had slightly better developed legs than this one.

As though mama is keeping tabs… As far as I know, each of these images is of a different tadpole. I’m grateful for the gift of being able to observe the miracle of metamorphosis in real time in my own backyard.

Dry Lightning

Jul10
Topaz chittered at me when I dared to invade her private sleeping tower early this morning.

Apparently I slept through several hours of a lightning storm before it jolted me awake around six. Wren was panting under the bed. I tried to avoid getting out of bed, rolling over, dozing, dreaming that the fire trucks came down my driveway and I invited them through the gate to get to the woods, and worried how I would ask them to take off their boots to go up in my tower. It was dry lightning, and had been crashing since two or three in the morning, with only a couple of spatters of rain. A perfect fire storm: heavy lightning, no rain. I opened my eyes a couple times to see blazing strikes out the French doors, and finally decided I’d better turn off Do Not Disturb in case there was a fire. Certain there would be a fire.

Not two minutes later, the phone rang. “Yes, what?” I answered, knowing it could be only one thing. Dawn saw and smelled smoke which turned out to be on the canyon rim between her place and mine. I climbed the kiva ladder to the tower and scanned with bleary eyes, but did not see it. My view of the place it burned, I learned when I climbed up again this evening, had been blocked by some other trees. Fortunately, it was just one juniper, and a team of neighbors and at least one volunteer firefighter found it and put it out. We knew there was a forecast for serious winds this afternoon. Several other neighbors reported strikes that they also put out. It was a busy early morning on Fruitland Mesa.

Mr. Wilson took this shot of the folks who put it out. I’m fascinated that they dug all around and piled the dirt up around the trunk. So grateful so many people have their eyes and noses trained on the woods around here, and the threads of connections among disparate neighbors knit into a coherent communication network.

photo borrowed without permission from Rosie’s facebook post: the smoke as seen from her deck.

Only then mid-morning, the Watch Duty app alerted me and others to a fire on the North Rim of the Black Canyon, just twelve miles away, and shortly afterward to a fire on the South Rim of the national park. The North Rim fire didn’t appear to exceed a tenth of an acre, and was contained and put out pretty quickly. The South Rim fire grew exponentially, from 50 acres to 100 in less than an hour, then to 300 in another hour, then to 425 in another hour. Then there was an update vacuum until about 8:45 pm, when it had grown to 1640 acres. In between, around 4 pm, Marla heard from a neighbor who spoke with a sheriff’s deputy on the road that it was 600 acres and the Visitor Center was lost. This hasn’t been officially confirmed, and we pray it isn’t true, but…

This photo was posted on Facebook by Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park midafternoon. I’m grateful there’s still federal wildfire fighters and helicopters available. If the Visitor Center truly is lost, I wonder if the federal budget will allow a rebuild, or if the park will close. What a loss that would be to both Montrose and Crawford, in so many ways. And personally: I was planning to take an old friend out there this weekend if she was able to stop by while she’s in the valley for a concert.

Midafternoon, another fire was reported on the Uncompaghre Plateau northwest of Delta. Altogether, Watch Duty recorded twelve new wildfires this morning in Delta and neighboring counties. Most of them stayed small and were put out. The latest update from the Sowbelly Fire came in as I was writing this: it’s now 2,193 acres. Needless to say, we stayed inside all day. I could barely breathe out there. Honey Badger was so kind, she drove down to pick up my garbage, and made an extra trip to bring my mail from the mailbox because I was expecting a parcel. A couple hours later, when the smoke cleared a little bit, I masked and went out to feed the birds, then stepped out on the deck for a better view. On one side of my big tree, the horizon was just a little hazy.

On the other side of the tree the smoke was thick, blowing from the west and likely fed by both the Sowbelly and the South Rim fires. At the house, it wasn’t too bad, so I took the window of opportunity to take Wren and Topaz for a short walk to our west fence, where I could see the South Rim smoke still billowing. I cracked an east window when we returned to the house just to get a little cool air inside, but within fifteen minutes I could smell smoke again. So the house is closed up tight, except for the two tower windows I leave ajar all summer to funnel heat up and out of the house.

It’s the perfect time to cut the budgets for weather science and forecasting, wildfire prevention and protection resources, and FEMA. FDT. Among other things today, I’m grateful for my practice which has gotten me through a day of challenging external and internal weather, for my community of alert, responsive and competent neighbors no matter their political persuasions, and for an oxygen compressor to fill my lungs overnight.

Cherry Pie

Jun24

That old ditty Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy, can she bake a cherry pie charming Billy? has been running through my head since yesterday morning when I set out to do just that. Turns out yes she can.

I used a new crust recipe that included butter and cream cheese, and chose to par-bake it though the pie recipe didn’t call for that. It was a partly successful choice.

It made the lattice top harder to attach, but with the clever little tool the lattice was a lot easier to make. However, I think I’ll give away the tool. Though the top crust looked pretty, there wasn’t enough of it. Next time I’ll try a handmade lattice or just leave it solid.

The bulk of the cherries came from Deb’s freezer, from a local organic orchard. Those few little brighter red cherries? They’re from my baby tree. It was fun to throw all nine of them in, and the gesture was well-received at the ‘family dinner’ up the hill.

Little Wren had fun with her friends Josie and Oso, though Oso spent most of the evening challenging a ground squirrel under his mama’s car. I’m grateful for having good-hearted, like-minded friends in the neighborhood, and for spending a comfortable evening savoring seeming normalcy despite the rogue president’s unconstitutional bombing the night before.

Wren inspects my work finally planting one of the little willows Garden Buddy gave me last fall.

This week’s value in the Mindful Life Community is Action, and today’s guidance centered on this quote.

“Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’ It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is ‘How can I make it better?’ To that there is an answer.” Leo Buscaglia

My challenge these days is finding the balance between these two questions. I wish this government’s policies weren’t rooted in the three poisons of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion; but they are. I wish I could do more to make the world a better place, and I suffer from feeling that I don’t do enough. Are my expectations, of myself and of human nature, unrealistic?

If you’re experiencing similar distress or confusion you might want to check out the free Mindful Living Skills webinar on Thursday online: Working with Expectations in a Time of Uncertainty. Click here to register or learn more.

Topaz lounges at the pond while Wren and I work.

Some days I just hate the lessons I learn! This evening I learned not to wear hearing aids to work in the garden. There aren’t a lot of mosquitoes, partly because I make sure there’s no water left standing long enough to breed them, even in the catch dishes under potted plants. But there are a few. One got caught between my ear and the hearing aid, and I couldn’t get it out. The buzz was strikingly loud, of course, but beyond that once I pulled out the hearing aid every effort I made just drove the killer insect deeper. There were no Q-tips downstairs so I had to hurry up the stairs as fast as I could, which still isn’t fast or graceful; the swab didn’t get it, so I hurried back down and grabbed garlic-mullein ear oil from the medicine cabinet and filled the ear to try to float it out; shook out the oil, swabbed inside, and could still feel it. After a hot shower and another Q-tip, my ear still doesn’t feel right. I pray that the damn mosquito didn’t bite my eardrum and send West Nile virus directly into my brain. Sigh. First world problems.

And a first world solution: sour cherries over chocolate chocolate chip ice cream, for a brief moment of forgetfulness. Savor the simple pleasures, while we have them.

Jun8

It only took a month to finally capture a western tiger swallowtail. I’ve seen one occasionally flitting about the yard but the conditions have not yet been quite right to get a picture—until today.

The wild butterfly bush (Buddleia alternifolia) burst into bloom this past week. It took a few days before its perfume began to fill the yard and draw in the swallowtail who spent most of the day feeding from its many laden branches.

I had a couple of work zooms today and couldn’t bear to do them inside, so I brought the technology outside and sat in the shade under the deck; grateful for zoom, grateful for the deck shade. And most grateful for the trust of the bluebirds. He flew in from gathering insects in the yard and perched over my shoulder on the deer skull just outside the hole in the adobe wall where they’re nesting. In a moment, she fluttered out of the hole and joined him. They both observed me carefully; then she flew away and he remained awhile. I was entranced, and I think we were all three reassured. I’m hopeful I’ll be watching when the chicks fledge.

Where’s Wren? She’s off ahead as we enjoy an evening ramble through the elegant old junipers, exemplars of resilience.

The light was a little strange as evening settled. When we reached the top of the ridge on the way home and could see the horizon through the trees there was strong haze dimming the mountains. Maybe diffuse smoke from Canadian wildfires, maybe why some of us are suffering extra allergies—we can’t bear to stay inside but the air quality isn’t as pure as it looks at high noon. But first, we watched moonrise from our new favorite sitting log in the southern woods.

Nighthawks screeked and dove overhead as we wended our way home just as the sun went down.

Even after sunset the day’s work wasn’t done. Grasshopper mitigation continues: 24 hours after neem spray the front line seems to be holding. There were just a few grasshoppers in the raised beds throughout the day. But I’m not taking chances. There were a lot of little feral lettuces in amongst the onions. To protect them, and to remove the competition from the onions, I popped them out and planted them in the new bed where I could cover them. The cover will cool them with a little shade, and keep out marauders. I hope.

I look forward to another brand new day tomorrow.

“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

More Claret Cups

May27

We just missed the last light again on this one though we went straight to it after my Monday evening meeting. But there was still plenty of light filtering through trees on other claret cups as we picked our way south through the woods.

This sighting led to a patch of them, and the light kept shifting on this largest one as we angled around for different views.

I’m so grateful for spring, and sunshine, and having the mobility to be able to wander aimlessly for an hour in the evening. Pain is so terribly constricting; the absence of pain is utterly liberating.