Now that Sandia Peak has enough snow for skiing, I feel slightly less guilty about celebrating bright, sunny mornings during this protracted drought. But Coop is still finding it tough sledding down here. He liked it better back in 2006, his first winter with me. He was smaller then, and I had …
Post from 2015: Look what I found taped to the back of my mildewed 1964 copy of Starr’s Guide to the John Muir Trail — purchased back then at Smilie’s outfitters in San Francisco — which I left for a year with a friend in Mill Valley while I went off to Turkey. Note second …
Diagnosed with lung cancer yesterday. Today my thoughts return to walking. Maybe I am undeserving, but I am hopeful that the good docs will be able to get me back in stride. I guess I am already at the start of new things to learn. I went for a walk with Cooper this afternoon in …
A hundred decisions during my 65 years led to me stay in New Mexico. But it started with blue sky, red earth and the brush of the wind through the piñons. I first lived in Las Vegas, New Mexico, after a Norman Rockwell start in central Ohio. Then it was a brief stay in stolid …
Snow on the ground and Three Sisters’ Kicking Horse coffee in the tank. OK, 2015, I’m ready.
I don’t ring a bell or shout at morning mealtime around here. I just say, “Breakfast is served.” The only other diner in the place, other than I, is the animal shelter refugee Cooper, who took up residence here almost nine years ago. He apparently has decided I am a pretty good butler. He trots …
This is Mus, short for Mustafa, drying off many years ago after a bath in the Mora River. He was a loving dog but he also enjoyed rolling in cow pies. On mountain trips, he got thrown in the creek a lot but seemed to like that, too. He was my father and stepmother’s dog …
It takes a long time to clear your head of election-year crud. You’re like a hard-pushed car engine with fouled plugs, oil change long overdue. I awoke twice last night with nightmares about imagined newspaper mistakes. But I am hoping my mind can return to it’s briefly euphoric state just before nodding off on Nov. …
A Twitter exchange involving tamale pie and “The Joy of Cooking” led me to investigate this photograph of my mother and youngest brother, both now deceased, during our residence in a trailer house on blocks somewhere near Iowa City, Iowa, in 1954 or ’55. Dad was was working on his master’s at the Writers’ Workshop; …
Home. Six thousand feet. North-central New Mexico. Stillness in October, the mellowest month.
dream ranch 