Category Archives: Walking All Day On Stone

Don’t know about you, but I’m pleased

Pleasing Fungus beetles. Yes, that’s their actual name. They live on the fungus that grows on dead trees, in this case downed by fire. I don’t know whether this group–originally there were three–were mating or tussling.

As my zoologist mother said, “You be grateful to fungus and bacteria. If it weren’t for them you’d be up to your neck in dead dinosaurs.”

Just Out:

It feels like what it is, a field journal. I’m delighted with it:

https://casaurracapress.com/bookstore/p/breathing-stone

You can order it from your favorite indie bookstore; from Bookshop, the indie alternative to the big A:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/breathing-stone-living-small-in-a-southwest-village-betsy-james/20027660?ean=9781956375152

or from the publisher, single copies okay:

https://casaurracapress.com/bookstore

Many miles of quiet walkabout. Illustrated.

UFO Superbloom

April 16:

May 4:

The desert was in superbloom. Our UFO is a scarlet beehive or hedgehog cactus, Echinocereus coccineus, exploiting a crack in a huge hematitic concretion. There were many concretions on the hillside, each with its resident beehive. The yellow carpet is probably Fendler’s bladder pod: Physaria fendleri.