Getting Around While You Are Here Underfoot and All Around Hanging Gardens Pack Rat Libraries Spans of Time and Life

Canyons Washed in Colors Nowhere But Here Space Rock Wind Water

"What do you do all day?" asks Carol, who likes to experience the world through physical activities. The old man looks over his left shoulder, towards the mountain behind the ranch then lets his gaze slowly drift down descending foothills covered with pinyon and juniper, over outcroppings of red rock bordering the north side of the irrigated pasture, then out onto the vastness of land that stretches as far as the horizon, which is very far. He smiles. "I'm just here", he says.

Behind those three words is a lifetime of eighty-two years. And behind that is yet another span of time, that of his parents who homesteaded the ranch. And woven into that time --- his and his parents' --- are the everydays of those who live on the edge of the rock wilderness. Good years and bad; years when the rains come, and years when they don't; and when a whole century's worth of rains come all at once. And the minutiae of daily chores; from putting up fence posts or digging irrigation ditches to hunting for stray calves among the maze of rock.

"I'm just here," he says, and he is. Like the rocks around him, like the junipers and the wind. He is part of the land in a way we, who are visitors, can never be.