You are currently browsing Colleen’s articles.
pussy toes
coral charm peony
this yarrow starts yellow then gets rusty
helianthemum
foxglove
going bananas peony – it’s really called that!
Every time I walk the garden looking for new blooms, I think of my Grandma Tess and how she’d ask me to post pictures of our Portland garden blooms. I feel as though we wander the garden together, these days, with her voice telling me what she likes and helping me find those rogue weeds trying to disguise themselves as other foliage. Here’s to you, Grandma!
Tags: Gardening + Nature
Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future… all human wisdom is contained in these two words, “Wait and hope.”
Alexandre Dumas
Tags: Quoting
New sage growth filled the air with its intoxicating scent and had the hubster and I swooning.
Our wonderfully cozy digs (and sweetest dog, ever). Greg and I have never been so enamored with a rental, envisioning, were it to come on the market, how we would make it our own.
The Taos Museum of Art at Fechin House. Every bit of the woodwork hand carved by Nicolai Fechin (feshin) in the first half of the last century. My photos pale in comparison to the in-person beauty. The artwork was pretty stunning, too, featuring Marjorie Eaton and Juan Mirabal (student and teacher to one another).
Well worth walking to their our of the way location on Kit Carson, tea.o.graphy serves and sells a stellar selection of tea. I also bought a fantastic mug with an old school pick-up on it, handmade in Taos, of course. If I can’t drive the truck of my dreams, I’m gonna drink from its likeness.
The above two photos are from the Mabel Dodge Luhan house, which was also owned by Dennis Hopper. It has quite the history!
San Francisco de Asis Mission Church
One of the most photographed buildings in the world gets its annual spruce up. How lucky we were to see it in progress. Sad to miss the interior, however. Next time!!
Year round hollyhock beauty! Now that is a thought. We have a massive volunteer in the back yard and a few in the front that I am hoping will bloom this year.
The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in the Moreno Valley is a humbling and moving space created out of a father’s deep and abiding love. Doc Westphall began the memorial after his son David was killed in an ambush in 1968. It was the first Vietnam memorial, dedicated in 1971.
When we were there, the Angel Fire Garden Club was busily and quite cheerfully creating beautiful garden beds on the grounds. I was touched to see such an out of the way place so filled with love for those who gave everything in Vietnam. There is so much good in the world, peeps.
More dazzling green! Our nephew Tyler came for a visit last week, and we chuckled that some poor person might move to Colorado or New Mexico believing this is what spring looks like on the regular.
Red River reminds us of Colorado mountain towns of our childhood.
La Veta Pass greening up after last year’s massive fire. Hope springs eternal…
A final glimpse from the road, with gratitude for the best way I can conjure to celebrate the start of my 48th year!
Tags: Colorado, New Mexico
Mt. Maestas
Blanca Peak & Mt. Lindsey
When Greg and I were first together, a woman we knew had a rather curious comic taped on her refrigerator, front and center. It read: “It’s not a vacation if your husband goes with you.” I imagine her snickering while carefully clipping it from the paper. Then, with precision, taping around its border, ensuring it would rest for ages and ages on the freezer door, in the direct gaze of her husband of more than twenty years. How funny it must have been to her. How cruel it always seemed to me.
Our trip to Taos was initially one Juniper and I would take without Greg. His schedule at the time of planning was fluid, unknown. It would be fine, of course. I am an excellent traveler, with or without him, and Juniper is so easy going. But I didn’t really like it. Not because I feel completed by him or “need” him. No, I am my own person, solidly so. Perfectly complemented by him, yes. Two synergistic beings in rotation round the sun. I didn’t like it because I love his company. His wit and wisdom. His kindness. His gentleness and strength. His ability to make me laugh and feel comforted. And, boy howdy, that handsome face. So easy on the eyes.
So when his schedule definitively opened, we jumped on the chance to travel together. And what a marvelous time we had!
The Plaza at Costilla, New Mexico, which lies just over the border from Colorado. My Great-Grandparents (times three), Maria de Jesus (called Jesusita and the source of my Native ancestry) and Aaron Williams, lived here at the time of the 1860 Census. She kept house, and he was a Wagon Driver (note his horse shoe tie pin!). The Plaza is much as it looked when they lived there, the building dating to the 1850s. I continue to feel awed at each layer of history as revealed to me, that they lived and died more than a century ago, yet I feel incredibly close to them. They are in my dreams and on the air, a pulse in my very veins. A marvel, truly.
Oh gosh, how I wish you could see the vivid emerald flush as it appeared to our eyes. We were treated like never before to green on this trip!
This little guy or gal, a cicada, I think? Long since dead, but still clinging to it’s final resting place. Nature really is a wonder.
The Claret Cup Cactus and Opuntias put on quite a show for us.
ponderosa
We hiked to the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge (a rift zone, actually), 680 feet, and thankfully not straight down!
Good Juniper. Not so great Colleen.
Not so great Juniper. Good Colleen.
We are none of us models!
Greg hides behind a most delicious post-hike burger at Taos Diner. It was well earned!
Manzanita Market – where I, of course, bought another wonderful selection of Dryland Wilds products. The cottonwood bud hand balm is the scent of my childhood springs (!) and super moisturizing.
Chokola never fails.
My people!
Back with more tomorrow…
Tags: New Mexico, Traveling
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.
Pico Iyer
Tags: Quoting
