How Not To Gather Any Moss

This out-of-sequence “weather report” covers Aug 15 – Early Nov 2005.

The trip headline read, From Budapest to Krakow – Across the Carpathian Mountains. In the spring, when I had to choose a trip to celebrate turning 60, I already knew this would be a summer of living life on the skinny branches, only higher up and farther out than normal. So, why not hike with a group over a mountain range I never knew existed, across a country I’d never heard of (Slovakia). Just google Walking Softly Adventures. You, too, might discover new geographies.

En route to Budapest, I landed in Amsterdam to change planes. The greenness was other-worldly, with water everywhere. Everyone in Amsterdam has waterfront property. I’d been living in Montana, where the cheat grass had started to go dormant from lack of moisture. I had turned sixty and, in Montana, looked seventy. My skin was that dry. Cheat grass dry. Next stop Budapest and an easy transfer to a bus that traveled through Budapest, past beautiful Baroque (possibly Mesozoic) architecture, with geraniums sprouting from most window sills. The bus dropped passengers and their luggage off at various hotels. My stop was last – a nice little pension with breakfast, which I usually slept through, thanks to the nine-hour time difference I was adjusting to. By the time I met up with my tour group a few days later, I had watched lots of American TV programs voiced over in Hungarian, and I could see from the news that Switzerland had suffered serious flooding. I was glad to be in Hungary.

My “tribe” for the next ten days consisted of “active seniors,” almost all of them older than me, some of whom also suffered “cheat grass face.” The group included a nice couple in their young eighties from Portland, a portly former football pro turned Dutch Reformed Minister wearing a knee brace, his sassy wife who became my closest buddy on the trip, and five friends from Seattle of Asian descent who hike a lot together and had recently ridden camels out of Tunis -- all really nice people. One woman, the only smoker, was in Europe doing one hiking trip after another with various tour companies. Anyway, we all walked and hiked and climbed our way across rolling hills and patterned farmlands into soaring, glacial-carved crags and peaks. We visited wine cellars, fortresses and monasteries that are World Heritage Sites, and listened to our Hungarian guide, Gabor, tell us about his culture. “Be careful not to ask a Hungarian, ‘How are you?’ because he will actually TELL you, and it won’t be pretty,” he said, wryly. He talked a lot about “the change” that gave them all greater freedom, and now what it means to join the European Union. Hearing all of this made me glad I was born in Priest River, Idaho. We all liked Gabor, and he knew his butterflies and storks (seen on many telephone poles in towns we visited or drove through). I took lots of digital photos.

Every night we stayed in castle hotels or four-star inns, always with giant pillows on the beds and buffet meals with more food than I’d ever seen in one place. After living out of a cooler all summer, I was like a hungry pygmy who’d just taken down a water buffalo. I gained weight. We always had hiking choices to make: less strenuous or more strenuous, and I usually opted for the more difficult. One hike took us up a stream gorge (something like a slot canyon in Southwest Utah), which involved walking on wet slippery wood ladders over the stream (I couldn’t have done this without my two new trekking poles).and then up a series of metal ladders, many stories up, that were bolted into vertical rock faces immediately adjacent to the waterfalls. This is the most exciting hike I’ve ever done in my life. I absolutely loved it, and I must go back to Slovakia to do it again. We hiked over a pass across the High Tatras. I was on top of the world – or so I thought – until we hardier folk climbed the highest peak in Poland assisted by chains bolted into the rock, coached by a Tatra Mountain Guide with serious body odor. I wore my Great Old Broads for Wilderness t-shirt. We stayed three nights in Zakopane (pronounced Zokkoponnie), Poland, a charming resort town with nice (cheerful, even) people, special mountain resort architecture, folklore festival and market, and world ski jumping championship on astro turf. Here I finished reading Michener’s book Poland –borrowed from Sherry and hauled with me from Idaho.

The owners of the travel company, out of Portland, led the trip – and I have never been so taken care of in all my life. A trip with this company should be prescribed by psychologists everywhere for caretaker people like me. It was finally my turn. And then all too soon we reached Krakow, and it was time to say goodbye to my tribe. Several of us cried. I bravely took the train from Krakow to Poland to fly home, and discovered that only younger Polish people who work in hotels speak any English. I didn’t know how or when to pay on the bus from the train station to the airport, and there was no one to ask, so when the ticket police came along I nearly ended up in Polish prison because I did not have enough Polish money to pay the fare AND the fine for my criminal act. A total stranger paid my fine and then got off the bus. I will never tell another Polish joke as long as I live; however, I do plan to write a letter to the president of Poland about the incident – because to encourage tourism, they just gotta do better with signs and other languages. I’ve thought about it and decided this notion is not ethnocentric on my part, it’s just good business.

Back in Helena, I stayed a couple days with Jeff, Lee and Madison, before moving to the Montana Artists’ Refuge (MAR) in the tiny town Basin, about 45 minutes south of Helena. They had a space available for a writer. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t do anything right to snag some illustrious “residency.” I had to pay rent, just like the other two residents – both artists – but it turned out to be the best thing I could have done with the month of September. I worked hard on updating the pages of the book (out first in 1987) for a reprint of Just West of Yellowstone, requested by the bookstores and the Forest Service in West. I’d been collecting new information off and on for a couple years. A member of the Board for the MAR is a graphic designer, and he designed a new cover for the book. I think you’ll like it as much as I do. When I bring out the new edition in the spring, I’ll let you know.

One resident at the MAR, an artist about my age, became a buddy to walk with at the end of a work day – up one of the gulches out of town. The aspens were turning yellow and we watched their progress. Pat talked a lot about other art residencies she’d done, and we also discussed how to determine where to live when we grew up. New Mexico, she thought. In fact, several of my friends are thinking about where to live and talking about New Mexico as a possibility. But maybe not – and this question about where to live keeps coming up, so I’m considering writing a book about that too. I mean, when you find yourself suddenly open to finding a home for yourself – because a hurricane displaces you, or a divorce, or your spouse dies, or it’s simply time for a change -- and you can move to wherever you want (within reason) – how to you go about deciding??? What aids are there “out there” to help you find your place? Proximity to family members can play a role, of course, but it isn’t always necessary to live near them, either, given the ease of air travel. And they may not even WANT you to be close.

Then during the first half of October I drove back to Big Foggy north of Priest River to stay at the cabin there and visit my favorite population on the fringe, the GBTC. I continued work on my update for Just West. The weather was cooling and the aspens and cottonwoods along the river were golden in the fog. It was a beautiful and magical time, as always. Almost every evening, Sherry and I watched on DVD the first season of MONK – a television series about an obsessive-compulsive detective. Highly entertaining. On the weekend, I drove to Sandpoint to stay over night with friend Bobbie Ryder-Johanson at her little cottage on Lake Pend O’reille. We had a lovely time catching up with each other’s lives, since we were neighbors and classmates at the Univ. of Idaho from 1979 – 81. We shared photos and stories. We sat at water’s edge and sketched and talked in the warm fall sunlight. I even toyed with the idea of buying a lot near Bobbie’s place, one with an old rundown cabin on it complete with thick moss on the roof, but it’s too expensive, and the location is too isolated for me. Bobbie and her family live near Pullman, WA, and are only there about one weekend a month.

Back to Helena for a few more days with Jeff, Lee and Madison – before leaving MT for the next 6-1/2 months. I must say that my son and his wife were patient and generous with me in my comings and goings all summer, and I know that I disrupted their lives on more than one occasion. I miss my granddaughter like crazy, but Jeff and Lee are good about sending me pictures, and I can send her cards and presents – like a first globe of the world with a little sign on a movable pin that says, Gamma Rae is now HERE.

After Helena, my last stop (before returning to St. John for the winter to work) was in Santa Fe. My friend, Diana, had just moved there from Pullman. Earlier in the summer she said many times, “You’re going to LOVE Santa Fe!” And she was right. For almost two weeks we did all sorts of things around town – plus unpacked some of her boxes. She ended up with too much stuff for her smaller new abode, so she gave me lots of nice clothes. We went on a couple birding hikes at the Audubon center near town, shopped at the Whole Foods Store, went to art galleries, and participated in an art invitational sponsored by the gallery that represents D’s beautiful acrylic flower paintings. Diana painted a pumpkin for the auction. The other artists, mostly from Colorado, painted still life set-ups, architecture, and street scenes, and we all attended the evening critiques as well as a huge reception at an art patron’s house out in the country. Wow! A new employee at the gallery is an opera singer who came to Santa Fe from New Orleans with her family. They just barely escaped with their lives and lost everything else. The Rotary Club of Santa Fe sponsored them, and the family is doing well, however, the 6’ 2” tall opera singer can’t sing soprano in 7000’ high Santa Fe, only (for now) Mezzo. Santa Fe has everything – welcoming, friendly, liberal, creative people; the most incredible art galleries and shops, and beautiful scenery and sky and mountains. My friend Carol from Fort Worth flew up one day for lunch with us, which was great fun. She and I will meet and drive around New Mexico and visit Diana in Santa Fe the first week of May in 2006.

And on October 30 I left Santa Fe for Seattle to catch my breath before my flight to St. John. Friends Katie and Lorna drove the 90 miles down from Bellingham for lunch with me and a great visit around Pike Place Market – a gloriously fun time with these two firecrackers. They plan to go with me (and any other friends I can round up – just let me know) on a goat packing trip into Grand Staircase/Escalante in SW Utah for a week in October 2006. They’ll bring their ukuleles. I’ll bring mine. We’ll paint and write and entertain each other and the goats. Suddenly it was time for Katie and Lorna to leave for Bellingham, and for me to bag my things and get on another plane.

And here I am back on St. John – where new dramas (stacked on top of old ones) continue to unfold, and where the weather’s the same as when I left in May – sunny, warm and moist (no cheat grass here), with a good chance of mosquitoes.

Conch Shell. 

This conch shell washed ashore in a storm and the conch creature died. I cleaned the shell and I'm sending it to my Granddaughter for her second birthday. The challenge is how to describe what this is and where it came from. To a two-year-old, the back yard is a big place. How can I introduce the world to her? 

During a successful slide down a snow field near Windy Pass on the edge of Yellowstone National Park, hiking with the MT Wilderness Assoc, July 9, 200

 
 

At Crow Cr Falls in the Elkhorn Mountains with friend Jodie

 
 

Of Foxes, Friends and Family

This “weather report” covers June 15 - August 15, 2005, and begins with a hailstorm – one with golf-ball-sized hailstones that I watched bounce off my nice new (2001 Mazda Tribute SUV) car one evening in Montana. The dents wrecked the resale value of my car, not that I was intending to sell it, and I caused me to change its name from White Lightning to The Dent Mobile, and collect $6100 in damage from the insurance company. This amounts to good wages for a summer, and what’s even more enlightening (and pathetic), is that it’s more money than I’ve earned on all my writing projects put together. My son said, “The next time you see a hailstorm coming, holler. I’ll drive my truck over and park it next to your car!”

June continued to be action-packed – with incredible sunsets, fox pups and bluebirds greeting my comings and goings on the two-track road to my cabin, and cold weather. On trips to Helena, I saw quite a lot of my son, Jeff, his wife, Lee, and my adorable granddaughter, Madison. I babysat some, happily, and used their house as a docking station for my electronics (laptop, cell phone) until I discovered how and where else to do it. At the cabin I sorted through all my belongings and bought a storage shed to share with Jeff. The rest of my time was taken up with keeping ice in my cooler (since I had no refrigeration), writing, hiking on the ranch, and driving into Helena for more ice and food as well as buying cool-weather clothing at the thrift stores. I bought several items at sporting goods shops for my big hiking adventure in Europe the end of August. I kept looking at these purchases (trekking poles, micro-fiber clothing you can wash at night and it dries by morning, etc.) as an investment in a positive lifestyle, one that doesn’t involve alcohol.

Toward the end of June I drove over to Pullman, Washington, to stay a few days with my good friend from our days at the Univ. of Idaho. We met in gym class, two non-traditional students—Diana studying architecture, me in landscape architecture, and I became friends with her and her husband, Ray. Unfortunately, Ray died in August 2004, just as they were preparing to move into a new house. Diana and I had a lovely visit. We hiked and sketched one day and had mutual friend Jennifer Rod over to dinner. Jennifer was just back from a motorcycle trip to Colorado and exclaimed about the beauty of Flaming Gorge. We saw another friend from UI days, Bobbie Ryder-Johanson, WSU campus planner, at lunch. Bobbie told us she had bought a cottage near Sandpoint. Diana and I talked frequently on the phone after my visit, until I received a cell phone bill and fainted.

The way the cabin is situated -- in a grove of conifers on a mountainside, looking out at thousands of acres of ranch land across to the Elkhorn Mountains – I felt something like a bird in a nest. The location is good "edge habitat," where I could look out and watch for danger but no one could see me. I learned from the post mistress at Jefferson City that a Chinaman owned much of the rangeland on the mountainside, and lived part of the year in nearby Boulder, MT. Of course, I romanticized the setting and called it all The Chinaman’s Ranch, and I decided to give my next novel, set on a ranch, that title instead of Cowboy School (which my cousin’s wife made me promise NOT to call it). On my hikes I came to imagine that the Chinaman was really quite a hunk of a cowboy, and that I would actually meet him while on one of my hikes – and I dreamed up an entirely new sort of novel to write, one that was more of a bodice-ripper, one in which I did not fend off the Chinaman off with a trekking pole.

I joined the Montana Wilderness Association and went on several hikes with them to train for my turning-sixty hiking adventure – from Budapest to Krakow over the Carpathian Mountains August 19 – 29. The first hike took place near Yellowstone – Windy Pass – a 10 mile hike that reached 10,000 feet – with 22 hikers plus the leaders, and there I was, bringing up the rear. The utterly gorgeous alpine scenery held my attention, but ohmygod, what a death march. One problem was that in early July we can experience serious thunder and lightning storms in mid-afternoon, so we had to get down off the ridge quickly. Remember, I’d been accustomed to living at sea level. To redeem myself in the eyes of the other hikers, I slid down a steep snow field on my butt instead of walking around. I’d done this other times and places, but as I slid faster and faster I used my trekking pole tip as a brake and dug in my boot heels -- plus the heel of my right hand. I did not want to tumble in a heap onto the rocky, muddy outwash below the snow, and I didn’t. My right hand regained feeling about 12 hours later. One young man took my photo so I could prove to the world what I had done, and I’ll try to include it.

Gail Richardson, a naturalist and guide friend from West Yellowstone days, drove over to the ranch from Bozeman to hike with me one day – which was great fun. She’s leading an outing to Fiji in November, and leads many trips for organizations like the World Wildlife Fund. On another day I drove down to Whitehall, MT, on I-90 to have lunch with my sister, Marian, and her nice new husband, Everett. They were on their way to Northern Idaho. Those two are a couple love birds, and I’m very happy for my sister, who deserves every happiness.

On another MWA outing, a Forest Service friend, Jodie, led an excellent hike in the Elkhorn Mountains, where she’d made a lot of good things happen over the past 13 or so years. Her focus was to coordinate management of this mountain range, no small thing with so many different agencies involved. Her new boyfriend was on the hike, a nice and fun professor at MSU (and a sex therapist), and no, I did NOT ask him any questions about his work. Jodie is now with the Gallatin National Forest in Bozeman as an ecologist.

My friends who own the cabin I rented, Martin and Suzanne, came out one evening for a BBQ. Jeff, Lee and Madison joined us. M & S had volunteered again as caretakers at Kirkwood Ranch on the Snake River during June, and they showed us lots of photos of that lovely setting in that stunning canyon. They were planning a trip to Norway later in the summer, since Martin is of Norwegian descent.

All summer long I hiked and explored The Chinaman’s Ranch, never once running into the Chinaman; however, I did lose my fear of the horses. When they came running toward me, I worked at trusting they would stop – and they always did. One of my Helena friends, Sarah, tells me that horses are symbolic of freedom and other good things, that they were greeting me and telling me something hopeful. The coyotes howled but kept themselves hidden. I painted some small pastels and took lots of photos. I sniffed sagebrush and found Bitterroot flowers (the MT State flower). In the early mornings I watched Ruprecht, my resident squirrel, sunbathe on his favorite Douglas fir branch.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Boulder Hot Springs – about 20 minutes south of the cabin. Once a week I went there to soak and swim and to get a thorough deep-tissue massage to help heal my body from the stresses and strains of life and work. Several times, Lee and Madison drove down from Helena to meet me there and swim with me a while before my massage sessions, and these times are so special and precious to me. I could write an entire book about how fun and smart and utterly delightful Madison is – how she knows exactly who she is and what she wants, and can communicate it all without throwing a fit. How she isn’t even two years old and speaks in whole sentences (okay, it’s sometimes only a noun and a verb, but that qualifies), how when she’s riding in the car and you pull out onto a street she will yell, “Hang on!” How she says, “moooooooo” (because I lived where there are cows) and/or “Oh, dear!” in the most dramatic way when she sees me (because I say it so much in lieu of cussing when I’m around her). I relearned much from Madison – and one thing is to be gleeful about small things, and that large things always pass.

Another big training hike with the MWA was in the Tobacco Root Mts. Over a weekend, we hiked and talked about geology with the director of a college geology field station near Pony. We were up among cirque lakes and other incredible scenery, some of which I believe was Precambrian.

Then came the big birthday weekend. Jeff, Lee, Madison and I drove The Dent Mobile to Big Foggy, my favorite place in the world north of Priest River, ID. The party honored several of us turning 60: Me; Sherry’s husband, Sam; cousin and friend Carol Cook, an anthropologist from Indonesia. Penny and John, Kathryn (Sherry and Penny’s mother) and many other loved ones were there. It was a real celebration of The Growing Brainless Together Club, and what a wonderful time we had. Jeff, Lee, Madison and I also saw sisters Jeannie, Laurel and Patsy while we were in Priest River.

On about August 15, I tearfully said goodbye to Ruprecht the squirrel, to the fox pups and bluebirds, the cows and horses. I moved out of the cabin and flew to Budapest. But since I realize how long this letter is getting, I will wait to write about the big European hiking adventure and what came after that in the next weather report, which will happen soon.

Thank you, dear friends, for your kind attention to my letter. Writing it reminded me of the joyful time I had reconnecting with so many old friends and with family members this summer – and how much I appreciate everyone’s support and kindness during this transitional time, as well as the generous use of the cabin on the Montana mountainside and Penny and John's beloved cabin at Big Foggy. I couldn’t have asked for a better summer during which to celebrate turning sixty.

Son Jeff, wife Lee, granddaughter Madison

 
 

Madison and her Gamma Rae hiking on Mt Helena, 2004. Gamma rays are good for you in small doses. 

Madison, my Beautiful Granddaughter, 2004 

My Immediate Neighbors 

My Route to the Freeway. 

My Villa of Reduced Circumstances 

Home, Home on the Range.

Home, Home On the Range . . .

Greetings from a mountainside about 25 miles south of Helena. I’m in a cabin looking out across thousands of acres of ranch land, complete with cows and horses, over to the Elkhorn Mountain Range. And there’s snow in them thar hills.

The first step in recovery from an addiction is recognizing a problem when you have one – and the other evening as I opened and closed 2 gates, drove over cow pies, and arrived home to this cold cabin with no electricity and a “detached bath,” it struck me: I’m addicted to NOVELTY. At that moment I remembered that what I really like are bright lights to read by, high-speed internet, and toilets that flush. Which does not mean I wish I weren’t here. I adore this special place and the solitude, and feel privileged for this opportunity – extended to me by a long-time friend who has never rented it to anyone before. I’m not lonely, with a squirrel named Ruprecht (after a character in the play I saw the end of May in NYC, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and a young snowshoe rabbit I call Big Stuff that lives under the porch. B.S. ate all the flowers off my geraniums, so I elevated them and leave pieces of carrot out for him at night. I hike and mountain bike all over the ranch. The cows run away from me; the horses run toward me, which is somewhat alarming given my history with horses. I must find out what to give them, as they seem to expect something from me.

After the trauma of leaving St. John, under less-than-wonderful circumstances, I’m slowly beginning to feel real again. Chores that some people might think of as fun have been quite stressful – like buying a car, learning to use a cell phone (406-459-6171), and hooking up to wireless internet (at a coffee shop in Helena), and having to open all sorts of packages myself. But most of that is behind me.

NYC was great, and it was fun to see my friend Carolyn. She’d worked as an interpretive specialist on St. John for 6 months and now works at a private museum in Queens. We drove to Jamaica Bay the first morning to a wildlife refuge, where I saw my first cardinal (and bought a stuffed cardinal that sings for Madison). We took the subway system all over the place: Museum of Modern Art, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Staten Island Ferry, Soho, Chelsea, and Pier 54 to see a most incredible nomadic exhibit called Ashes and Snow (see ashesandsnow.com). It was colder than heck there, but everyone was friendly and nice and I only saw one person lying on the sidewalk asleep (or dead). I often heard sirens but saw no gunfire. After seeing all those crime shows I was fearful. Carolyn was a gracious hostess and I hope to see her again on my way to Budapest in August.

My granddaughter, Madison, is almost 18 months now and we have fun together. I take care of her about one afternoon a week. Jeff and Lee and Madison came out here for Sunday dinner recently and we went hiking up the ranch road. Now when Madison sees me she says, “moooooooooooooo.” If anyone knows why cows moo, please let me know. Probably the same reason birds sing.

I’m only now beginning to communicate with the rest of the world. I just haven’t felt all that friendly. I did make a quick trip over to Priest River to see my dear friends and fellow members of The Growing Brainless Together Club. I stayed in the cabin overlooking the river there, as I have been blessed to do many times before, and a cow moose that had recently given birth graced our viewshed in the bushes down by the river. We watched her and baby Bullwinkle through our binoculars. While out walking on the road I met one of the neighbors, who climbed down off his tractor to visit. He’s 95. I found myself wishing he was 30 years younger, not that I’m looking. As I turn 60, it is enjoyable to meet older people doing so well. Sherry and Penny’s mother, Kathryn, for instance, is 82 and dates a man who is 92. He drives her all over in his new car, and they have more fun than anybody. K smiles quite a lot these days. On July 29, Jeff, Lee, Madison and I will drive over to Priest River to celebrate my birthday with the GBTC.

In a week or so, I hope to drive over to Moscow/Pullman to see artist friends Jennifer and Diana, then south to New Meadows to see cousin Jimmy and his wife, Lorna, who came down to St. John last February to walk in the 8 Tuff Miles race. We might go rafting on the Salmon River one day.

July will be taken up with hiking/training for my 60th birthday adventure in Eastern Europe, a 10-day group hiking tour from Budapest to Krakow over the Carpathian and Tatra Mountains. A company out of Portland, Walking Softly Adventures, leads hiking trips all over Europe. The “softly” part means you get to stay in a comfy inn each night. That trip is Aug 19 – 29, although I’ll arrive in Budapest early to poke around and adjust to the time change. I joined Montana Wilderness Association and will go on several outings with them in the next couple months. Who knows if I’m even up to all of this hiking – and at “elevation,” to boot. They say taking Viagra helps you hike better at elevation, but I bought a trekking pole instead. Hope this doesn’t turn out to be a death march.

Friends from St. John, Tina, James and 7-yr-old daughter, Maia, will be driving a motor home from Florida out to MT to see me (and lots of scenery in between), and plan to be here July 25 – 28 or so. They’ll bring Squeak the Lizard with them and photograph him at various road signs. Squeak sits on the counter at The Canvas Factory and wears a sign, Squeak Lizard for Service. Then Squeak will go with me to Eastern Europe. I’ll take him back down to St. John on Nov. 1 when I return there for the winter to work. Maybe I’ll write The Adventures of Squeak, The Lizard.

No publisher yet for A Field Guide to North American Geezers, nor have I heard from the publisher who is considering the novel, Cheating the Hog. This summer/fall I do hope to update and reprint Just West of Yellowstone. Otherwise I just write in my journal about daily life and keep getting ready to sketch and do some pastel paintings using new skills learned from my St. John artist friend, Livy.

This weather report is sketchy, and quite possibly superficial, but I wanted to communicate something. I’m developing a weblog, but it is slow going because I’m only on the internet a couple times a week when I get to Helena. There are a few things there if you’re interested, at www.jellyfishstew.blogspot.com. I can tell you of a significant weather event last evening: a hailstorm with hailstones as big as golf balls (honest). I went for a hike afterward and the air smelled like a thousand fresh-cut Christmas trees from all the small branches that landed on the ground. The best aromatherapy.

I’d love to hear from everyone who receives this email. Please know that I’m thinking of you and hoping you each have the best summer yet. And if you are in the Helena area, I’ll be in touch soon.

Remember, Cows Not Condos.
I send you a big hug from my Villa of Reduced Circumstances,

Rae Ellen
Alias Rage (short for outRAGEgeous, not necessarily angry)

Leap Frog 

Leap Frog 

Little Blue Butterfly

This is a pastel painting of me when I was five years old. Set to travel, got my wheels, but I'm hanging on. My doll is strangely armless, but I believe we traveled together in those days. The butterfly was a blessing. My good friend and world-class portrait artist, Livy Hitchcock, painted this for me from a fuzzy black and white photograph. Livy and her husband, Tom, own a wonderful fine art gallery on St. John at Mongoose Junction called Bajo el Sol (Under the Sun).

Leapin' Lizard

Leapin' Lizard

Lizards, six or seven different charming species of them, live all over St. John. This one was crawling on the outside of my screen one day. They eat insects, but not nearly enough of them to suit me.

Frangipani Acrobat

Frangipani Acrobat

On the property where I'm fortunate enough to live in a small cottage, several frangipani bushes grow. In the middle of winter (December or January) these colorful caterpillars magically appeared on the bushes, a dozen or so on the bush near the cottage porch. In a couple months they had eaten all the leaves off and dropped to the ground, although you could not see them anywhere. Surprisingly, the frangipani caterpillar does not become a beautiful butterfly. Instead, they become dark hawk moths. I'll try to post a photograph. What happened with these bushes happened all over he island. Within weeks new leaves emerged along with flower buds. Just this month, May, beautiful white flowers bloomed amidst fresh new leaves. There isn't much in this world that smells more fragrant than frangipani blossoms.