Month: March 2022

Hiked to the river

But then had to hike back out

Very exhausting

Today, I did a solo hike on a trail called Purgatory Flats….It does go down to a rather flat area, but then the trail goes all the way down to the Animas River….10.3 miles round trip. with a 1820 foot elevation drop down to the river and then a hike back up the trail with an elevation gain of 1820 feet.  The trail is often very steep and rocky.  I carried a 23 pound pack and I was really exhausted by the time I made it back to the car…..

A hospital bombed

Mass graves. Refugees on foot

Helpless, my tears fall

I usually don’t watch TV, but I turned it on at lunchtime today and I openly wept at what I saw.
The maternity hospital bombed.  Ukrainians burying Ukranians in a mass grave.  Refugees of women, children, old men and women on foot…some having to be carried…..everyone….some with pets.. carrying on their backs and in their hands what they had left of their lives…. My heart aches for these people and for humanity.  And I kept on thinking how fortunate I am and   “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

The Evening Primrose

Slow dancing in my garden

A daily blessing

Women balancing

in Bali, Indonesia

Sacred offerings

In honor of International Women’s Day

Sandhill Crane pair

Their haunting Unison Calls

An omen of Spring

Bowing and jumping

Sandhill Cranes show their feelings

Springtime courtship dance

Shows off rosy throat

Withstands temps below freezing

High meadows jewel

 It was very very humbling being on the birding field trip today.  I think that we had about 45 different species, but most of them we never saw….only heard…..There were a number of amazing experts along that could identify all the birds just by their songs and calls….to me it was often impossible to distinguish one call from another….much less memorize it so that I would know it once I heard it again….


This photo is of one of the few birds that we actually saw….a Broad-tailed Hummingbird…..and it was many many meters away.  I carried a cheaper lighter-weight camera so the quality of the image is rather poor….I carry this camera to help assist in the identification of birds and sometimes do not carry my much heavier camera. Today, I knew that we would  be walking for about four hours so chose to take the lighter camera. The image quality is not very good compared to my other cameras, however.



Hope you had a good Saturday:

Now if we listen

we can hear plants rejoicing

Heavy March snowstorm

Today, our area was blessed with a good heavy March snowstorm. Late this afternoon, as the sun was setting, I went outside and listened and distinctly heard the muted sounds of plants rejoicing. And like the seeds beneath the snow, I found myself dreaming of Spring.

Windows frame my views

PF is feeling better

Snow-throw now. Smiling.

Out in wilderness

As I stand free and healthy

A war is raging.

For the world which seems
to lie before us like a land of dreams
So various, so beautiful, so new
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.
And we are here as on a darkling plain.
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night. – Mathew Arnold from “Dover Beach”

How can a man like myself, soaked with news, his senses muffled, shielded by the mechanics of his civilization and worn into despair by its brutalities, how can he know the real earth when he meets it? How can he be company for it? – John Hay In Defense of Nature