I had a meeting with a client yesterday and was presented with the usual dilemma of what to wear.  Fortunately, the business end of it was solid and secure, but switching from my usual private “barn clothes”, that are OH so comfortable, is always a challenge, especially since I usually work from the comforts of my home or out in the field, literally. It was so much easier as a public education “official” —...

Impermanence is the stuff of life, which by its very definition is change.  Nature reminds us of this each time we transition from one season into the other.  We readily accept the golden aspen leaves of autumn, the apple blossoms in spring, the crisp frosty mornings of winter, yet fight change in the most common everyday, sometimes insignificant areas of our life.  But it still happens, just as life does. Animals seem to be so much more...

  I put a lot of time and effort into trying to grow beautiful Old Garden roses.  Last year’s drought was a real challenge and fortunately most of the bushes rallied back this year with a little extra nourishing. But a little less spectacular are these little wildflowers, or “weeds” that grow along my driveway and all over the fields every August.  Even in the scarcity of water last year, they were here, and...

  The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what “the story of the trees” would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.  ~Author Unknown, Thank you, God, for the trees still standing, and for the seeds of new growth. (for our beloved...

Each fall and winter when the cottonwood trees turn brilliant gold and the marshes and grasses take on orange and russet hues, visitors and hoards of photographers armed with massive lenses descend on Bosque del Apache to witness and document the riotous arrival of the Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes who spend the winter in this precious wildlife refuge. The Festival of the Cranes is held annually in November and there is a steady stream of...

    On a recent day trip to the forest to find autumn colors, I made the photo above.  It’s an HDR (high dynamic range) composite of five photos.    We don’t have many maples here in New Mexico;  lots of gorgeous golden aspens, but not the vibrant red of maples.  I was quite focused on finding red, so I was somewhat surprised that I was drawn to this scene, apparently for some unconscious reason.  There were...