In July I had the honor and good fortune of accompanying 11 other writers, and about 100 scientists, to the Mount St. Helens Science Pulse, sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station and Oregon State University’s Spring Creek Project, to study and discuss the post-eruption landscape 30 years after its last major [...]

On Sunday we took a drive into the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson under the auspices of a daylong Girl Scout retreat. That was all good and fun, but the trip also presented the opportunity to photograph Rose Canyon Lake and some amazing desert wildflowers we saw on the way up. Here are a [...]

On Friday I skipped work to take my daughters hiking with a group of neighbors up the Babad Do’ag Trail, which starts at the first pullout on Catalina Highway once the road starts climbing the Santa Catalinas. It was a beautiful, wildflower-filled day, and the 4-mile roundtrip trail was just right. Here are a few [...]

A dazzling wildflower season spells trouble for the master-planned communities that spread like invasive weeds along the edges of urban areas across the West. How are the wildflower wars being waged, and why is it important to have natural yards in cities, anyway? Here’s my take: http://americancity.org/daily/entry/834/

I’m running behind on posts, I know, but ’tis the season. School’s almost out, and then I may have a moderately regular blog post schedule. Or at least I’ll keep telling you that. My new Canon XSi arrived late last week and while I haven’t had much of a chance to play with it, I [...]

I returned yesterday from two extraordinary days of wildflower hunting in the mountains north of Tucson and east of Phoenix (Superstitions, Dripping Springs, Apache Leap, and points thereby). I went with my friend Scott Calhoun and three other landscape designers and folks I hadn’t met before: Julie from Chicago, Hilary from Indiana (from England originally), [...]

The flowers at Ironwood Forest National Monument aren’t bad. The flowers at Picacho Peak State Park are absolutely amazing. Below are 17 glimpses of my morning hike with my older daughter. There are a total of 63 colorful images over in the gallery, too. Sunrise over a low peak adjacent to Picacho Peak, itself about [...]

Not perhaps what you typically think of with forests, but Ironwood Forest National Monument, northwest of Tucson, is pretty spectacular, especially on a beautiful day like today when the poppies are a-poppin’! Below are a dozen photos from the afternoon outing with fellow photography addict Scott Calhoun (though he actually gets paid for this stuff [...]

After a walk with my daughters this morning, I had no choice but to run back to get my camera and macro lens. The barrel cactus flowers right now are stunning—and the red bird-of-paradise and lantana blooms are at prime, too—as I hope the photos below (and in my site’s Gallery) attest to: Check out [...]

The last few days have brought tremendous thunderstorms to Tucson. Yesterday our neighborhood was without power for four hours because a dozen or more wooden poles holding power lines snapped in the wind. Otherwise, the gullywashers have been nothing short of spectacular. They are what make the monsoon season—generally early July through late August—my favorite [...]