In Cappadocia, Turkey, they hang jars on trees. I took a photo of this one in 2011. Why hang jars on trees? you ask. So did I, and I was told that the Tree of Jars was a symbol of abundance in Turkey. I guess maybe it’s a good thing if you’re rich enough to…
Some of the lava plumes have been six hundred feet high. My house sits 600 feet above a beach much farther north, and with the nearest active volcano a nice safe 80 miles away. Spurr (north and east of Tyonek) is the rumbler that’s getting all the attention lately.
No visit to the island of Hawaii is complete until you spend a morning at the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden. Perched on an outcropping of the rocky north coast of the island, on and around a cheerfully gurgling stream which runs into the surf planted with thousands of tropical flowers the view is stunning in…
The first #inmygarden post of 2025. Photos taken March 29th, when these overachievers have no business poking their heads above ground. Rhubarb. Old man’s bones. Primrose. At least they aren’t blooming. Yet. Himalayan poppy. It’s still below freezing at nights, guys, give it a rest!
On March 30 Amy Bragg of Amy Bragg Photography posted on Facebook with these photographs. Reposted here by permission. Also known as the first sign of spring in Alaska.
In 2011 I went to Turkey with my friend Sharyn. That westward-leaning peninsula has been the crossroads of continents for millennia and everyone who did so left their mark, but especially the Greeks and the Romans. It’s no wonder Turkey has twenty-one world heritage sites; they could easily have twenty-one more. But my favorite was…
In 2012 I did a road trip to Canyon de Chelly with my friends Rob and Barbara. All of the American West pretty much has to be seen to believed but the Southwest is almost otherworldly. You drive over the high desert and suddenly this chasm opens up, with pinnacles and monuments and spires somehow…
These National Park Service Lego vignettes make putting up with Facebook worthwhile. Love the poster on the wall. They did a good job of keeping count of the not-so-funny government shutdown, too.
The view from my deck. From left, that’s Redoubt in front of Storyknife‘s garage, Iliamna through the trees with Cook Inlet peeking through below, and Augustine sitting offshore in lofty disdain from its fellows. And then there’s this: …which is what passes for a snowpack this year. It froze last night for the first time…
It’s that time of year again, when I scroll back through the #inmygarden photos from the previous year, while agonizing over the lack of insulating snow and wondering if I’ll see any of these blooms ever again. A garden is a lovesome thing, god wot. From the Duchess’s Garden (named for the Duchess de Nemours…
