A day both cool and warm. Hazy clouds, pumice sand underfoot, soft wind hushing in the ponderosa. The water of Peralta Creek was icy with runoff, milky with pumice dust.
We bushwhacked up a box canyon full of oak brush and wild roses; I bled furiously. Strong smell of skunk or weasel. A swallowtail butterfly in erratic flight, bright yellow among the worn boulders.
Caught the first horned toad of the year: a fat one, with salmon belly and yellow side-fringe. About the size and heft of an Oreo cookie.
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WORLD-BUILDING and WILDERNESS: 
Never connected oreos and horney toads!
Great drawing and unusual mind…
Horny toads are the only lizard slow enough for me to catch. When I do, I kiss them. This used to be in the hope that one would turn into a desert-hiker prince, but now that I have that in Dave I kiss them because they’re so scowly and cute. They’re always relieved to be let go.
It’s wonderful to spend a few sparkling moments with you out in nature – which could perhaps be silent …. but I know that nature is seldom that …. Diana
What could be better than ponderosas, New Mexican dust, and a cool little stream running through a flowered valley? Only grabbing a horned lizard, I guess. What a wonderful world this is.
I miss the horny toads of New Mexico!!!!