Wilderness Interface Zone

For a larger view click on the photos.

Ancient  chipmunk hole below the pin oak
This burrow has been used for many generations of chipmunks.

Early moonrise in my backyard
Taken in Pennsylvania

View of the Kiskiminetas River through a stand of trees, springtime
Taken in Pennsylvania
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Elizabeth is thirteen years old and enjoys writing and photography. Capturing the magic and beauty [...]

April’s beauty carries with it rain
Wet tear drops falling from the sky
Its premier today, showing up shy
Sliding into slits in buds
Mixing itself with different muds
Slipping down my forehead
Touching my eyelashes ahead
I close my eyes to nature’s gift
While they were closed I did drift
To the month of May’s sweet, sweet scent
To view flowers and green is [...]

“Look, here’s Fezzika,” my mother said, bending down to point out the Woodhouse toad tucked under the garden stone. We had discovered the amphibian’s house a few days earlier, and I was fascinated by the placement choice. She had dug into the soil under a cornerstone edging the flowerbed beside the main path through the [...]

Narrator: It was a sunny day in the town Pudding but no one could see it. There was a cloud in the way of the sun.
Boy: I can’t see anything!
The mayor: We must do something!
All: But what?
Town folks: Ask the king!
Mayor: Not the king!
Boy: That is a good idea.
Mayor: The king does not rule the [...]

School’s out—at least for kids in my neighborhood.  In theory, this means they’re outside more, turning over rocks, taking pictures of what they find with their camera phones, using their iPhones to run a quick Internet critter identification search, engaging in texting one-upmanship (bgz r gr8), so on and so forth.
Okay, maybe they’re not doing [...]

The usual warnings continue to apply.  Parts One and Two here and here.

April 22, 2010, Earth Day and M’s birthday.  Twenty-four hours have passed since the doctor put his words out there.  I’m still hot with anger and grief, still breaking into sobs at the slightest twinge of thought.  I’ve examined M repeatedly for signs [...]

Continued warnings: Long post, and a difficult one, especially in combination with Part One (found here.)  If you’re still reading–thank you.

Two days earlier, as I cleared my desk and bookshelf, I was happy to find an old-fashioned booklet containing photographs of me when I was a toddler.  About a year ago I took possession of [...]

This is the first installment of a three-part series.  It’s about experiences my family and I had on and around Earth Day two months ago.  Sorry it’s so late–writing it took a while.  Readers be warned: not only do the posts run long but they get hot under the collar as I tell stories about [...]

Last week my husband found himself in need of a computer monitor.  In our part of SE Utah, if you need affordable computer parts of middling quality right away, you drive the 160 mile round trip to the nearest Walmart, located in the shadow of Mesa Verde in Cortez, Colorado.  He left late and returned [...]

At five in the morn I gaze upon the Earth
Holding my little one so innocent and mild.
Hoping that I might have a chance
To feel her trails of glory
The midnight rain ended soon,
Leaving clean the outside world
I glanced through a crack to catch a glimpse
Of  Nature’s hallowed view.
Crisp, Clean, Calm the scene lay before my eyes.
Each [...]