this is what fall looks like : a nature walk in maple canyon with friends

our climbing day turned into a nature walk thanks to the wet weather.

i would have been happy either way...but i'm glad we got to see

as much as the canyon as we did, and all of the little crawling things we found:

a butterfly that was unable to escape the frost, fuzzy caterpillars, empty nests...

signs that the cold weather has arrived and things are quieting down.

moments like these are both so very earthly yet so very heavenly:

awe mixed with tangible world in front of my eyes,

experienced with people i love.

will remember this weekend forever. see more of our weekend here.

{by the way, been swooning over this song and figured out the melody on my violin...quite pleased with myself}

{also in love with this song}

best parenting book i've ever found...not that i'm a parent nor plan on being one anytime soon

i found this makes-me-think-that-parenthood-might-be-survivable book

while browsing the "science & nature" section at my local bookstore.

glee is exactly what entered my little outside-loving heart as i flipped through pages

that told me how to listen to the heartbeat of a tree, find hibernating butterflies,

have a snail race, and on and on and on. pure joy. i bought the book.

i took it home. and then it hit me:

this is the best parenting book i've ever read {it's the only "parenting" book i've ever read}.

this is what will give me sanity as a parent: it will get us all outside, my favorite place to be.

and we'll all get to be curious and we'll get to have lots of fun, simple projects,

and i won't feel so isolated {one of my biggest fears of motherhood}, right?

yes, this book will get us all outside day after day...throughout all seasons...

at least, that's my idealistic dream right now.

if you are a parent and are smirking at my little dream right now,

please don't burst my bubble. i'd rather experience it when that time comes.

by the way, there's a killer website for the book that you could check out right this minute.

this is our island in a desert {part two}

"nobody can discover the world for somebody else.

only when we discover it for ourselves does it become

common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone."

-wendell berry

our red rock wilderness {part one} : another reason we love living here

"something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the
remaining wilderness be destroyed...we simply need that wild country
available to us, even if we never do more than
drive to its edge and look in."

-wallace stegner

have you ever looked in to the mysteries and grand beauty
of the red rock desert?
it changes you. it slows your breath, and opens your heart and mind...
but it closes your mouth.
all you want to do is listen and watch to find out just how much this
seemingly empty place is moving and growing...thousands and thousands
of years of constant, but steady, change.

our red-rock wilderness pulls at my heart-strings.
it is a place that is incredibly stormy:
at one moment the sun shines and the dirt is cracked,
and before you know it a thunderhead has burst
and flash floods can be a danger that i have, luckily, never experienced.

it is stormy in another way:
there are tensions as to whether it should be preserved
as the great wilderness that it is,
or if it should be interrupted for our energy consumption,
or opened to development that, simply, there is not enough
water in this desert to support.

we fight to keep this wilderness...
because when it's gone, our children will miss it.
i know nature is much more powerful than us,
and could possibly heal after hundreds or thousands of years...
but i desperately want my children to know this wild place
as i have known it. and i desperately wish i knew this wild place as
it was for my grandpa as he traveled its canyons and plateaus so many decades ago.

this place will heal you.
it will whisper the most simple, but awe-inspiring secrets to your heart.

this is why we love living here. the wilderness is at our fingertips.

{by the way, did you know that much of this red rock wilderness is yours? if you live in the US, and pay your taxes, then you have a right to say what happens to this land...pretty rad, huh?}