Life long learning, in its most simple form, can be achieved by watching, regardless of where you are. A week without it is incomplete. The past week was overflowing, courtesy of a flower that is exploding into bloom throughout Santa Fe right now - the hollyhock. A member of the Malvaceae family, the hollyhock or Alcea rosea, has quite a story to t...

With high temperatures predicted in the mid-90s, it seemed like the perfect time to head to the mountains and inhale that rarified air one encounters at 10 to 11,400 feet in elevation. Although we have walked the Aspen Vista trail/service road for the Santa Fe Ski Basin a number of times during the years since returning to Santa Fe, we had not gone...

Years ago, when Santa Fe Greenhouses had a thriving business on Siler Road, where gardeners from around the state would fill the parking lot and be almost elbow to elbow with fellow enthusiasts and professionals alike, I was wandering around the greenhouses and open areas looking for assorted penstemons. The late and great co-owner of the place (wi...

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. Several things presented themselves over the past month that made me ponder photography and how important photography is to memories and to the act of recording them as they happen. Every single photograph you or I have ever taken is a memory of something - an item we can keep in a book or view on a scree...

It has been a banner year, despite less than normal moisture, for all blooming things. So after a brief period of photographing, documenting, and delivering Fred's Navajo-Churro wool items to both Tierra Wools in Chama and to Centinela near Chimayo, I returned to photographing new flowers. Yellow is the color of the week in this photographer's gard...

When I awoke this morning, something was missing. For the first time in two weeks, not one leaf on the aspen trees outside our bedroom window was moving. The wind has been so consistent that the quiet - just for a moment - was odd. But what a welcome change! We managed to walk every day except one, and when we saw people on the street in the area,...

"The genus name Aquilegia comes from the Latin "Aquila" or "eagle"; this is in obvious reference to the spurred, "hook" shapes within the blooms, that many gardeners say resemble an eagle's talons." I have to ponder that one, from the good folks at Wikipedia. But the spurs of all columbine flowers are definitely distinctive, and make identifying th...

Despite the temperature roller coaster ride in northern New Mexico this week, nature continues to surprise and amaze. Nearly everyone I see while walking comments about how beautiful the trees and flowers look this year, some giving advice on where to look for particularly outstanding blooms. It had to be, then, that at least one more blog would fe...

Many mornings last week, before the wind began its daily grind, I stood beneath ornamental apple, pear, plum, and peach trees, staring in awe at their blossoms, and inhaling one of the finest fragrances nature has to offer. The hum of hundreds of bees made it absolutely mesmerizing. It was as if I had been transported to an extraordinary place. Nee...

In the United States, 15 April is traditionally the deadline for submitting one's income tax forms/payments to the government. Oddly enough, it also has become the near-official arrival date of hummingbirds in northern New Mexico. And while living in Taos County, we began looking for these amazing creatures at the beginning of April, hanging a feed...

Spring in New Mexico is unfurling at a faster pace each day. The recent frost in parts of northern New Mexico was not deep enough to damage too much in the way of flowering tree blossoms, thankfully and ironically, due to the spring winds. Anything that could take flight this week did, including a piece of pink day-glow plastic tape that may be a p...

Happy April Fool's Day! This week's blog began because I needed a watch. I have always loved watches and when Fred suggested he buy me a watch for my birthday, I hemmed and hawed for a minute or two and went to the computer to search for watches made in America by American small businesses. There were more small businesses than I expected and an a...

Taking a break from rendering the photographs I had shot of the first daffodil of the season, I walked to the window and, to my surprise, noticed that several apricot trees were in bloom. It seemed a little early, and although there were flowering fruit trees in bloom at the Santa Fe Railyard Park, I had not seen any in the neighborhood. That excit...

Given that St. Patrick's Day celebrations have been going on all weekend, Major League Baseball games begin mid-week in Seoul, South Korea, spring breakers are headed in hordes to warmer and greener parts of the country, and the vernal or spring equinox is Tuesday, 19 March this year, it only seemed appropriate to show some green in this week's blo...

Signs of spring are everywhere in this second week of March. The amount of daylight is becoming longer at an ever increasing rate as the Vernal Equinox - this year on 19 March - approaches. Although there are no flowers in evidence just yet, in the early morning hours, a trip out the door ushers in a chorus of glorious noise from the bushes and tre...