Kreativ Blogger Award

I had a special surprise waiting in my inbox this afternoon.  Gary Keimig, Wyoming artist and gentleman, has awarded me the Kreativ Blogger Award!  I am so honored!  Thank you!  And yes, I am putting aside other tasks because acknowledging this and passing it along just cannot wait.

Here's what Kreativ Blogger Award recipients are supposed to do:

1. Copy the award to your site.
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
4. Link to those sites on your blog.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominate.

There's also something about listing 7 things about yourself, so I'll dispense with that first:

1. I was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California.
2. I also grew up in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where my family owned Rock Creek Lodge.  I spent every summer there until I was 21.  The mountains and my experiences there shaped who I am.
3. I majored in English at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.  (Yes, I love to read.)
4. My husband is my soul mate.  We like to say we share one brain.  We're one of those couples who completes each other's sentences.  Sickening, I know.
5. We chose not to have children, but do have two rather spoiled dogs who think they're people.
6. I (we) LOVE to travel.  I get depressed when we come home from trips, even just day trips.  Life "out there" is just so fascinating and exciting.
7. The thing I am most grateful for these days (aside from all of the above) is this world I now inhabit online.  I know there can be negatives - I think we have all complained about being tied to our computers - but I have met the most creative, inspiring, friendly, warm-hearted, REAL people here.  You make my day everyday with the things you share on your blogs or in the comments you leave on mine.  Thank you!

Now, let me introduce a mere handful of the aforementioned people.  I hereby pass the Kreativ Blogger Award to these lovely women (in no particular order):

Suzanne Berry - LOVE her bugs and everything else she does - and certainly her friendship
Camilla at bloom - her photography frankly takes my breath away
Sarah at Bee House Hives - I came for the bees and stayed for the everyday beauty she shares
Kim at Bella Della Farm - she shares her most wonderful farm - and her charm
Diane at Sabino Canyon - her photos and stories about her desert home always educate and delight
Karen at Beelieve - she reminds me to be silly, free, feminine, and perhaps a bit wild
Akiko at Art by Akiko - her ability to capture animals on canvas is simply beyond words

Now, I must say that this is a very short list!  There are so many more I wanted to include.  But many have already received this award, so I wanted to share it with those who have not (as far as I could tell).

Ladies, thank you for the wonderful things you bring into my life through your blogs.  You are truly Kreativ spirits. 

(And please don't feel that you have to pass this along if that's not your "thing" - it is given without obligation.)

A Virtual Visit to the East Mojave

First, let me confirm that I am still here.  I apologize for neglecting my wonderful dedicated followers.  I have been so busy with other things that I simply have not had a spare moment to post anything. 

What has kept me away?  Well... it all relates to the desert.  My husband and I are knee-deep in the final editing and layout of a book being published by the organization we volunteer for (the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association, for those who might be interested).  I have also been busy pulling together some of my desert photos for two calendars to sell (I hope!) during the annual get-together for the organization's membership the first weekend of October.  One is scenes around the East Mojave and one is wildflowers and cactus flowers that are found there.  You can check them out at my Zazzle store.  All of this is very fun stuff, just time consuming.

Anyway, since I finally had a moment I thought I'd share one of my favorite places in the East Mojave.  This is a photo of Ford Dry Lake, taken in early October 2004.  The plant on the left is catclaw acacia and that's cholla on the right.  The mountains in the distance are the Woods Mountains.  Ford Dry Lake is named after the Ford family, who homesteaded there in the early 1900s.  It's a particularly quiet, peaceful part of the desert, as not many people wander that far off the main roads.  It's a beautiful valley and would have been a really nice place to live.  I know a lot of people find the desert to be rather desolate, but I think the silence and scenery are divine.

And on that note, I bid you adieu until I find the next opportunity to reappear.  Also, please be assured that I am keeping up with reading your comments and am trying to respond as much as possible.  I do always love hearing from you!

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.

~ Peter Minard

Thursday's Sunset

Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Happy Cactus Monday

Beavertail Cactus (Opuntia basilaris)

For more colorful cacti, visit Terri's Painted Daisies.

The more ugly, older, more cantankerous, more ill and poorer I become, the more I try to make amends by making my colors more vibrant, more balanced and beaming.

~ Vincent van Gogh

Flower or Fairy?

Kangaroo paw

And as the seasons come and go, here's something you might like to know. There are fairies everywhere: under bushes, in the air, playing games just like you play, singing through their busy day. So listen, touch, and look around—in the air and on the ground. And if you watch all nature's things, you might just see a fairy's wing.

~ Author Unknown

Gardening Gone Wild: Down on Your Knees

The subject for August’s Picture This Photo Contest at Gardening Gone Wild is "Down on Your Knees." Garden photos must be taken from knee level or lower. There are some fantastic entries so far. As judge photographer David Perry says, "too many of us take the majority of our pictures from standing height, which really limits both our visual understanding of a garden and the sense of intimacy we can capture." Amen! One of my favorite things to do these days is get right into the middle of a flower, much like a bee might, to get to know it more intimately.

And so my entry for the contest is this Euphorbia milii. It sits in a pot right outside our sliding glass door, which means I walk past it every day. I tend to give it a wide berth to avoid getting snagged by its huge thorns, but stopped one day recently to take a closer look at its flowers. Look how beautiful and intricate they are when seen from this vantage point (you can click on the photo to see it larger). I guess all those thorns are intended to protect this treasure.

For those of you not familiar with this plant, each flower is about a quarter to half an inch across. The photo below shows more of the plant. Did I mention it has thorns?

Instead of complaining that the rosebush is full of thorns,
be happy that the thorn bush has roses.

~Proverb

A Bit of Color

Orange Cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus)

I captured this beauty when we wandered through the demonstration garden at the fair. Mother Nature sure knows how to play with color.

Speaking of color, if any of you live in or near Orange County and enjoy art, the exhibit "Illumination: The Paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Pelton, Agnes Martin, and Florence Miller Pierce" currently at the Orange County Museum of Art is exquisite. I have always admired Georgia O'Keeffe's work, but Agnes Pelton is now my favorite artist. She was an interesting, very spiritual woman and her paintings truly define the word "illumination."

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Sierra flowers

I experienced a couple new flowers during my trip (and please let me know if I have misidentified them)...

Nevada goldenrod (Solidago spectabilis)

Oregon checker mallow (Sidalcea oregana)

They make a nice meadow bouquet!

This one I always liked when I was little...

Ranger's buttons (Sphenosciadium capitellatum)

And let's not forget this treasure I stumbled upon in the garden; the good old daisy knows how to compete for attention.

Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.

~ Rumi

Vacation in the Sierra Nevada

I've been astonishingly busy with mundane things since coming home from my mini-vacation. I have finally managed to pull a few photos to share. This trip was mostly about my dog Rusty. Since he has cancer and only a limited amount of time left on this planet, I decided he needed some time in the mountains. Even though I haven't lived there for years, the Sierras are still the place I feel most at home and at peace. And what better place for a dog to enjoy hiking, canoeing, wading, rock climbing? It had been too long since we'd had the opportunity for such things. All of us benefitted from the fresh air, cool, crisp water, brief rainstorms, and lazy afternoons with the sound of aspens in the breeze...

Lake Mary, Mammoth Lakes, California

Stump & Roots, Lake Mary

Twin Lakes, Mammoth Lakes, California

Serene Lake, Rock Creek Canyon

Serene Lake, Rock Creek Canyon

"I want that piece of bark, but I don't want to get wet..."

"I can almost taste it!"

"Mommy, this is rather nice..."

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~ John Muir

I'm Back!

I was gone for five days for some fun in the mountains and have spent a few more days getting caught up on life's daily chores. I'll post some photos from my trip later.

Most important is to share these treasures that arrived in the mail while I was gone. I ordered one of Marianne's beautiful mandala cards (it has dragonflies—how could I resist?), and being the special person that she is, she included a couple extra treats: a bookmark with a collage of her mandalas, and a bright, cheerful ATC! Isn't it all gorgeous?!



I'm not sure how she knew I have a particular fondness for the yin yang symbol—she's amazingly perceptive. Anyway, I just wanted to say "thank you" publicly and share the beauty of her work. My desk is a much brighter place!