Four years and glowing!

Sunday was our fourth wedding anniversary. We stopped to enjoy poppy fields in a couple of places on the way down to Bisbee on Saturday, then spent the night in the historic Copper Queen Hotel. Didn't hear any of the three ghosts alleged to inhabit the hotel, but slept well!

It was nice to get away and enjoy poking around Bisbee, enjoying each other's company and the fact that we got through the cancer year and came out the other side with flying colors, we're enjoying where we live and what we're involved with ... and we get to share daily laughs and joys.

Spring is with us ... again. The beautiful blossoms covering the tree in front of the house perished in a late burst of snow and frost. Everything's back on track now, but a lot of fruit probably got nipped in the bud, literally.

The Grant County Art Guild is starting to get active again for the 2012 season and we've got pictures in a show at the library and in a new, ongoing venue at a local hardware store. We helped put on a reception the day before St. Patrick's day and it went quite well.

The Guild was also involved when a camera crew from KOAT-7 in Albuquerque came to the Hearst Church Gallery in Pinos Altos in the process of doing a special on the Hearst family history. That got us all atwitter!

A trip to Las Cruces to pick up a new lens for my glasses gave an opportunity to visit with an old NPS friend and tour the plaza area of Mesilla ... a very pleasant set of shops. We'll probably be going back there for Christmas shopping.

So, we're getting through the month pretty well, staying busy. I'm going with another Friend to Paloma, Mexico, on Wednesday and then, on Thursday, we drive to Phoenix, fly to Seattle and visit Drayton in time for this birthday on the 3rd. While there, we also plan to see grandson Seth in Bellingham, tour Seattle and take a two-day jaunt around the Olympic Peninsula, just Sandy and me. It's been about 45 years since I've been in the Puget Sound area, Sandy's never been there and neither of us has ever been on the coastal side of the Olympics. Plus, we get to have supper with a couple of old NPS friends while we're in Port Angeles. Back home on the 4th. More then. TV

Spring is here ... cough, sneeze, drip

n'sI can tell Spring came early this year; at least, the sinus symptoms did. The doctor's records show I was in a week earlier than last year with my Spring sinus infection. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

But, life goes on (or you wouldn't be reading this).

So far, March has been musical. A week ago, on First Friday, we discovered that one of our favorite group of young musicians was going to be playing at Isaac's. Amy Lopez Ross (aka "A Whiskey Girl") and her husband Derrick ("Nowhere Man") were playing with Dylan Charles and the Border Crossers (the "Border Crossers" are Sam and Danielle Panther). They're out of Bisbee and we first saw them at Pickamania! Lively, active, just lots of fun to watch and hear!

And we caught Bayou Seco and the Fiddling Friends (again) playing the courtyard of the Silver City Museum. The museum followed up with a performance of a play (one in a series) by a local author; this segment was about five Apache women who escape from their Mexican captors and walk a thousand miles north to get back home.

In between the two programs, I enjoyed the afternoon sun on the facade of the old theater that serves as the museum annex. Lots of little details to delight inWe went up to the Opera House in Piños Altos to hear Tony Furtado and Luke Price. Sorry about the quality of the pictures ... men in black with only two spots don't give much light to work with. They're great musicians - both two-time national award winners - but without the spark and verve of our young friends from Bisbee.

Spring is showing at home, too. The curve-billed thrashers posted themselves as sentries on the cholla behind the house ... actually, I think they were just soaking up the sun! And the deer have been wandering through, including this last year's fawn that was playing peekaboo with me.

Wednesday I went to the optometrist in Las Cruces. We got as far as Deming on the way back and both I-10 and US 180 were closed due to blowing dust. What to do? So, we took a roundabout road through Lake Valley and Hillsboro. This gave us a chance to "see" (through the dust) the new wind farm out there and to stop briefly at the ghost town of Lake Valley ... we'll definitely be going back to Lake Valley!

I end with a sign of the times. Yesterday, at the entrance to the Silver City Walmart, was this cowboy and his horse with the sign, "Need Day Work." Think on it a while. tv