My step-father's brother didn't like people and he didn't like fresh air. He'd sit in his living room staring at the wall. We were all afraid of him. One day, I ventured into the room and asked him what was wrong.
The other day I mentioned in my blog I'd seen a beautiful red bird but didn't know what it was. Yesterday at Kartchner Caverns I saw another and in the Discovery Center finally found a book and discovered the bird's name. I also learned the male Vermilion Flycatcher spends 90% of its time perched on one thing or another.
Today we're leaving all this behind. We'll be traveling for the next few days without email, without blogs, twitter, facebook, TV. It just leaves me breathless. I'll be back in touch possibly on Wednesday. (I feel like I'm getting ready for my first spacewalk.)
I know someone who once told me there was absolutely nothing she regreted in her life. I found this incredulous.
Instead of working on my book today, I'm finding stuff in the desert and making other stuff out of it. (I'm a terrible photographer, perhaps clicking on the images will help.)
I'm thinkng of my mother today on what would have been her 89th birthday. Writer, painter, ponderer. A woman who didn't live long enough to find her own peace.
Yesterday I was hiking in a riverbed, my dog and I when suddenly a little red bird flew from the skeleton of a burned tree. It landed not far from us and watched us watch it. It was an incredible little bird, completely red except for its brown wings, the size of a sparrow and so beautiful. And I wanted so much to know what this little bird was.
It's beautiful to wake up this morning after days of ferocious wind to find not a leaf in the trees moving and the only sound the Union Pacific off to my left.
Annie Bones is a great traveler. Here she is, kicked back while we're buffeted by bigrigs on I10 heading west out of Silver City, NM.
Horse and rider, mural, Silver City, NM
Silco Theater
Old Town, Silver City, NM
The sun slips behind the Chiricahuas and the rig rocks in the wind. The only thing missing is the soft glow from a lantern and the lingering scent of kerosene.
Fifty mile per hour gusts. The wind whistles so loudly it's as if we've been swallowed by some deep throated warbler.
I am inhabited by a cry.
(I have no idea why there are two images here. But the 2nd one is free.) 
We drove through Skeleton Valley in New Mexico today. We passed a border patrol truck with 2 agents and an apprehended illegal who stood at the back of the truck with his hat in his hand. Later we passed two men in heavy layered clothing carrying water jugs walking down I80 toward the Mexican border. Right toward the border patrol.
Okay, so I'm in love. Is there someone out there willing to sponsor me into free housing in this town? I'm a good person...
This woman, I'll name her Willa, looks out between the metal lattice in the window of General Merchandise and Farm Implements in Pearce, a ghost town 20 miles up the road. The town consisted of an intersection with a closed pottery shop and the sign, "always open", a boarded up house with two barking pit bulls and another sign directing us to the Pearce Cemetery.
I bought this necklace in Bisbee yesterday. I thought it said, "applesauce". (don't ask why I found that appealing, I just did.) When we got back to the rig, I noticed it said, "Applause". Now it is a much noisier necklace than I'd intended.
My son, Sol is celebrating his birthday today somewhere in Mexico with his family, a regular birthday weekend! (Sol is seen here looking very perky early one morning last week in his kitchen with his wife, Diane, also looky perky considering it isn't even light out and no one's had coffee yet.)
It is very difficult for me to make a decision on a hill. I feel precarious and I view the whole world the same way.
Today is my granddaughter, Sierra's 9th birthday! A very happy one to this kid who at this very moment is someplace in Mexico celebrating with her family! (what an incredible girl!)
Some may remember our Witness Protection friends, Stan and Janet. Well, we just met up with them again in the Arizona desert. They're getting pretty cocky. This time they didn't even cover their faces. Just wait til the federales get a load of this! Great to see you guys....and what fantastic cookies!!! (that's what we had for dinner last night.)
1957 diner originally sat at the corner of Ventura and Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles and was brought by flatbed truck to the Shady Dell on Hwy 80, southeast Arizona in 1996.
Irene yuks it up at Dot's Diner with Cha Cha, who recommends the burger and chocolate malt.
We spent last night at Deb and Phil's in Cochise, AZ playing Farkle in their pole barn. Nothing but the starless sky and the slim outline of the Stronghold to the west. And under the rafters near the Xmas lights just a soft rustle as the Cactus-wrens and their spring brood settled in for the night.
I have a poem published in the spring issue of Persimmon Tree On-line Magazine. Please visit www.persimmontree.org to read, "Cornstalks and Crows."
Leapin' lizards
Irene and Annie Bones take a dip in the Colorado
It's like carrying a 2 ton boulder around on your back. Nice in camp though.
There are wildflowers everywhere! (seriously, there were more than these 3 little daisies.)
"..I want to live at the pitch which is near madness but disciplined by art."
18 hours with my son, Aaron from Toronto who is on the West Coast for a work conference. Fleeting and sweet.
She writes, "....his lean feet stick out, toes with the deprived look of potatoes sprouted in the bag." (just how can you not love this Canadian writer?!)
My latest offering to the Found-Art-Goddess. Turn the wheel at the base of this seaweed woman. She says, "I've been stabbed in the heart so many times but I'm still in love with you honey."
