One year I made up a story to help a friend and I complete a walk. We’d left her car near a ranch at one end of a desert canyon and taken my truck to a side drainage to walk back through and have a day outdoors together. Even with ice at the edges of pools, the full sun and a cozy warmth with lunch on a big slab of granite made it a classic Arizona...
Read MoreHeading north with a plan; Feasting there, on “nothing”
Do you enjoy details of Arizona land and lore? Here is a quiz for you: where is Doyle’s Saddle? Why is there a Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott? If you are sitting on the porch at Kane Ranch, what cliffs glow with end–of-day light? Ok, so you have walked up the Weatherford Trail, and been down to play or listen to folk music in Prescott, and if you’ve...
Read MoreLearning to frolic with change; Fall leaves and leave taking
As certainly as yellow creeps down the sides of the mountain where groves of aspens change daily, I feel my thoughts creeping away from the duty hours of looking for fires. Now I imagine distant adventures. For five years I’ve started winter by spending October in Maine in the small house my mother was born in. It belongs to me now and little old houses...
Read MoreOn first responders everywhere; You and me and a stranger make three
As a fire lookout on a local peak, I am thanked many times each season for doing what I know how to do: sit quietly, look, notice detail, pay attention, respond effectively. That’s the work. I appreciate you all paying your income taxes that support my federal job to turn in smokes and read books. I appreciate the miracle of years of such employment in my...
Read MoreTattooed by lightning; From pulsing cloud to spiral scar
A bolt sizzles between the fire tower and my truck 100 yards away. A thick lump of smoke wafts across the steep road. My eyes widen at sound and shape exploding in the woods. Though I’ve seen hundreds of bolts in 20 seasons, I am astonished. From my wooden chair I peer out the west window trying to see into the draw where lightning has once again not hit...
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