I was in Phoenix visiting Nolagirl in November 2017. She knows I love Little Free Libraries, so she suggested we visit the ones we could find in town. I thought it sounded like a fun excursion, so I readily agreed. I’d visited Little Free Libraries in Los Gatos, CA , Mesa, AZ, and Santa Fe and Taos, NM and was really excited to see more of these awesome manifestations of gift economy.
A Little Free Library is a “take a book, return a book” free book exchange. They come in many shapes and sizes, but the most common version is a small wooden box of books. Anyone may take a book or bring a book to share.
The first Little Free Library (LFL) we visited that day was
on 28th Street. Nolagirl said she passed it all the time.
I love the color scheme of Helen’s Little Free Lending Library.
When we approached the LFL on 28th Street, the
first thing I noticed was the great color scheme. I love the dark blue main
color, especially with the lavender accents. I also like the four little
windows that let you look into the library and the door that swings open to
offer access to the books.
The next thing I noticed about this LFL is that it is “official.” There is a charter number (44511) on the left hand side of the sign that comes from the Little Free Library organization. Having a charter number means this LFL is registered with the Little Free Library organization and should pop up on the organization’s internet map of LFL locations. The LFL organizations says other benefits of registering a Little Free Library include
receiving a steward’s packet of tips and advice,…access to a private Facebook support group, and more.
Before I started writing this post, I had another look at the photos I took of this library. When I looked at the photos, I realized this LFL has its own name. It’s not just some generic Little Free Library. It’s “Helen’s Little Lending Library.” This realization leads me to ask many questions. Who is Helen? Yes, she’s probably the library steward, the person who maintains this LFL, but who is she really? Why did she decide to start a LFL? What’s her favorite part of having one? Also, how does a Little Free Library get its very own unique name? Does it cost extra to name your LFL?
These were the books offered the day I visited Helen’s Little Free Lending Library.
There were several books to choose from in Helen’s Little Lending Library, but nothing I really wanted to read, so I left them all behind. I also left behind a couple of books I had to donate. I felt good about being a contributor. After all, we can’t expect Helen to do all the work to keep this Little Free Library going. I was glad to help.
The Man and I and Jerico the dog took my New Mexico State Parks Pass and went camping at Bluewater Lake State Park between Gallup and Grants, New Mexico. We were staying in the Canyonside Campground near the trailhead for the Canyonside Trail.
Bluewater Creek down below
As you may have guessed from the name of the campground and the trail, we were camped on the side of a canyon. Specifically, we were camped above the canyon, but trees and vegetation blocked the view of Bluewater Creek down below. It was easy to forget the land dropped dropped dropped right across from where the van was parked.
It was late September, late in the camping season, so we had the campground loop mostly to ourselves. Some folks in a popup camper were in the area when we arrived on Saturday, but they left late the next day. An elderly couple camped catacorner and across the road from the site we had chosen, but they moved to a spot with a shade cover in a different part of the park after a couple of days when the weather forecast called for rain.
Because the area was underpopulated, The Man felt comfortable throwing the ball for Jerico. He threw the ball away from other campers and kept it pretty close to home.
As I’ve written before, Jerico loves to play ball. He loves for us to pet him, he loves Rachael Ray dog food and any sort of yummy treat, but most of all, he loves to play ball. In the last year, it has become possible to throw the ball enough to wear Jerico out. After fifteen to twenty minutes of chasing and retrieving the ball (depending on the temperature outside) he has to lie down and rest, but in another fifteen or twenty minutes, he’s raring to chase and retrieve the ball again.
Jerico and The Man look down into the canyon.
The Man has thrown the ball for Jerico for countless hours in the last seven or so years. He’s usually very careful to never throw the ball anywhere dangerous because Jerico doesn’t have the sense to stay away from danger. All Jerico cares about is the ball. Jerico focuses entirely on the ball. He doesn’t think about where the ball is going or the relative safety or danger of going after it. Once the ball is thrown, he simply takes off after it.
The Man is usually very careful about where he throws the ball, but this day something went wrong. Whether he was distracted and didn’t think about where he was aiming the ball or if the ball bounced and went off in the wrong direction, I don’t know. Suddenly I heard The Man yelling No! and Stay!
I’m sure you’ve guessed what happened. The ball went toward the canyon and Jerico was not going to hesitate to follow it. Luckily, The Man intervened in time and kept Jerico from blindly giving chase.
The Man put Jerico in the van and searched the area around the drop off in hopes of finding the ball stopped by a large rock or fallen tree branch. No such luck. The ball was gone. No doubt it had rolled and bounced its way down to the canyon floor.
Jerico was not happy about the loss of his ball. He looked at The Man expectantly and barked.
In the past, when the Man was done playing, he sometimes took the ball away from Jerico and put it out of his reach. I think that’s what Jerico thought had happened. He settled down after about ten minutes of barking and expectant looks. However, later in the day, he got more insistent inhis looks and barks. We knew the signs. He was ready to chase the ball again.
Oliver will chase and retrieve any ball, even if he’s popped it, even if it’s bigger than his head.
The Man usually travels with a supply of the blue racquetballs Jerico likes to chase. (Of course, Jerico will chase and retrieve any ball, but the racquetballs are light enough for him to bounce off his nose and catch in midair.) The Man looked all over the van and couldn’t find a single blue racquetball. He realized he’d left the extras in his van which we’d stored in a friend’s backyard over 300 miles away.
Jerico grew more insistent. He really wanted to play ball.
Look dude, The Man said to him, we’re not going 30 miles to Wal-Mart just to get balls.
Jerico obviously didn’t understand.
We had to keep a close eye on the dog. He kept trying to go near the drop off to sniff around. He’s part beagle, so I have no doubt he could have picked up its scent. We were still concerned he would jump off the cliff fof the ball with no concern for his safety.
By the next morning, Jerico was being a huge pain in the neck. He would look at us and bark, toss his head, and prance around. We knew what he wanted, but had not way of giving it to him. The barking just went on and on.
I guess we’re going to have to go to Wal-Mart, The Man grumbled.
We had some things to do at the public library in Grants, then The man and I had a lunch date at the local Pizza Hut. It was mid-afternoon by the time we arrived at Wal-Mart. We made a beeline to the sporting goods department, only to find there wasn’t a single racquetball to be found. There wasn’t even an empty space on the shelf where racquetballs should have been.
The Man said we’d have to get tennis ball, but we couldn’t find any of those either.
The Man went to the nearby toy department and asked for help, but the associate he brought back to sporting goods with him couldn’t find racquet or tennis balls either. She shrugged, said she was new, and wandered back to the boxes of toys she’d been unpacking.
Another worker we cornered said to look for tennis balls in the pet department. We found some there, which we purchased, but we wondered where the tennis and racquetball players of Grants get their balls.
Once back at our camp at the state park, The man pulled out one of the new especially-for-dog tennis balls out of the package and played a game of fetch with Jerico. You can bet he was super careful to throw the ball well away from the canyon.
It’s difficult to adequately capture the sculpture Two Horses in one photograph because the piece has many angles to explore. I’d taken one shot of it (the photo above) during my visit to downtown Mesa in the spring of 2016, but I never thought this photo was enough. During my exploration of a few blocks of downtown Mesa with Nolagirl in March of 2018, I was able to get a few more shots.
This bronze horse has quite an expression on its face.
Two Horses was created by artist William Barnhart. According to Barnhart’s website, he received a BFA from Brigham Young University in 1984 and continued with graduate studies at Arizona State University in 1985. He is a resident of Mesa and has been a professional artist for over 30 years.
You can see more of William Barnhart’s sculptures on his webpage, which shows both sculptures in a pre-cast state and those that have been cast in bronze.
I love the texture of this piece, which begs to be touched. The plaque on the base of this piece explains how Barnhart made the horses look this way.
The sculpture’s unique surface was created by layering wet plaster over modeled forms of two horses, then allowing the plaster to run and drip. The effect is a texture with a random, organic appearance over a highly controlled form. Subsequent processes were used to transform the sculpture into its final bronze state.
As you might have guessed, this car is a tribute to the rock band Queen. The art was done by Rebecca Bass and her students at Reagan High School (now known as Heights High School ) in Houston, Texas. This high school is so cool, it has an art car club on its official list of activities available to students!
Freddie Mercury lets his freak flag fly. Oh wait! That’s the Union Jack!
Rebecca Bass is famous in the Art Car community. She’s created about 30 art cars in her lifetime, almost all of them with kids.
Bass leads the art car club at Heights High School. She and her students were even in a movie! The 2011 documentary Art Car: The Movie follows Bass and her students as they prepare a car for the Houston Art Car Parade.
That’s a full size keyboard on the side of that car!
largest free public event [with] more than 250 rolling works of art …
I think this woman is holding bicycle handlebars. Perhaps she represents the Queen song “Bicycle Race.” That song was really popular during my childhood. “I want to ride my bicycle/I want to ride my bike!” I didn’t realized until I was writing this post that there’s an official video for the song and it features naked women!
I think it’s really cool that high school students did the majority of the work on this car. While I do like Queen, I wouldn’t call myself a huge fan of the band. What I am a huge fan of is the meticulous embellishment work done on Bohemian Rhapsody. Wow! So much bling! I don’t think there’s one inch of space on this car that’s not covered in shine, sparkle, or flash. This is my kind of three-dimensional collage.
There’s a guitar to go with the keyboard. The band is almost complete.
Bohemian Rhapsody seems to have found a permanent home with ArtoCade out of Trinidad, Coloroado. The ArtoCade website calls itself
a parade!…a festival!…a party!
Bohemian Rhapsody seems to belong to ArtoCade out of Trinidad, CO.
ArtoCade also has an art car museum. The information was a bit unclear, but from what I could ascertain, the museum once known as the Bizarre Car Garage had to vacate its space prior to September 2018. It seems to have relocated and been rechristened as Art Cartopia. I think admission to Art Cartopia is free. That’s my favorite price! (The information I found about Art Cartopia was on ArtoCade’s Facebook page.)
If you’re ever anywhere near Trinidad (a small town just off Interstate 25 near the Colorado/New Mexico border), I suggest you stop at Art Cartopia and take a look at Bohemian Rhapsody. There are so many details to look at on this car! I could have stared at it for hours.
I’m pretty sure that’s a fat bottomed girl on the left. And look! There’s the drummer Roger Taylor on the right!
I wasn’t able to find out much about the art carZalafayra.
Nolagirl and I saw the car at spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity in the spring of 2018. Either there was no sign with the car or I didn’t take a photo of it, so I came into this post not knowing the name of the artist. I had to play detective to get some info to share with my readers.
Plastic carrots, money, moss, and antlers, plus other odds and ends.
When a Google search of “Zalafayra” turned up nothing, I turned to Instagram. A search of “#zalafayra” brought me to a video belonging to Scot Campbell (@scotcampbellwindowpainter). In the video, a man identifies himself as Rick McKinney of Marin County, CA and says Zalafayra is his car.
A holy man (Jesus? a saint?) is surrounded by shards of mirrored glass, orange and yellow flames, live moss, and bullet casings. This must be a religious experience.
In the video, Rick McKinney says he likes to “let people make up their own mind about what” the car is “all about.” He points out that he used “live moss, antlers, a bunch of religious figures” on the car. He said he was working with the theme of faith when he embellished the car, and the items on it represent things people put their faith in.
Some people put their faith in money. Some people put their faith in themselves; that’s the mirror…Some people in nature…time, Jesus, Buddha, you name it.
There’s a lot going on around the Virgin Mary, and I love it. Matchbox cars, a menorah, Minnie Mouse, a couple of crosses, a tiny dinosaur. How is it all related? It was all related in the artist’s head, and that’s good enough for me.
With additional detective work, I found out a bit more about Rick McKinney on The Lighthouse Peddler website. The man’s not just a visual artist, but a poet as well! (You can read his poetry on his blog Jigglebox.com.)
A tiny Last Supper nestled in among the moss.
In an October 2017 list of “Rick Trivia” by Blake More on the aforementioned website of The Lighthouse Peddler, we learn that Rick McKinney
“[h]as been featured on television a dozen times with his art car Duke.”
I don’t know why Zalafayra was on display and not Duke. I don’t know why there’s not more information about Zalafayra out in the world. In any case, I feel really grateful to have seen this car, and I hope with this blog post, I’m doing my part to spread the word about it.
It’s an art car. Definitely an art car.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to read about the J Gurl art car and California Fantasy Van that were also at the spark! Festival.
It’s been well over a year since I spent a night at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park near Alamogordo, NM. It was autumn of 2017 when I stayed at the park, and I was sad because The Man and I were in one of our off-again phases. This post will not be the most in-depth of my reports on a New Mexico state park, but I’ll tell you about the basics.
I’d left the primitive camping area at Brantley Lake State park with a final destination of Truth or Consequences, NM. I decided I’d visit White Sands National Monument on my way since I’d never been there before and always heard it was a magnificent place. My New Mexico State Parks Pass was firmly attached to my windshield, so I could camp in any developed site in any New Mexico state park with no out of pocket expense.
View of mountains surrounding Oliver Lee Memorial State Park with the visitors center visible on the middle of the left side.
I knew Oliver Lee Memorial State Park was a bit out of my way, but I didn’t realize it was quite so far out of my way. I didn’t mind the extra miles I drove to get to the park since my pass got me in at no additional cost. Also, I like to see new places and was enjoying my tour of New Mexico state parks. However, if I didn’t have the annual camping pass, I wouldn’t necessarily to go out of my way to spend one night at the Oliver Lee campground.
I arrived at the state park late in the afternoon, after eating at an Asian buffet in the White Sands Mall in Alamogordo. I drove the 17 miles not really sure where I was going but following the instructions of the Google Maps lady who lived in my phone. I didn’t realize until the next morning that to get to the park, I passed the turn off onto Highway 70, the road that would take me to White Sands National Monument. I typically hate backtracking, but I didn’t stress out too much about it since doing so allowed me to visit a new-to-me state park.
Site #32 Can you see the moon to the right of the mountain?
When I arrived at the campground, I drove around the two loops looking for a developed site with no hookups. I settled on site #32.
I knew I should go to the visitors center and learn something about the area, but I just felt blah. I really only wanted to stay close to my van and digest all the food I’d stuffed down my gullet at the Asian buffet.
I did hang out at the van for a while, then decided I should go for at least a short walk. When I’d arrived at the campground, I saw a sign pointing to Frenchy’s cabin. I wondered who Frenchy was and why s/he had a cabin in the park. I decided to walk over there and investigate.
The remains of Frenchy’s cabin. If I remember correctly, the rock wall is original, but the brick wall has been rebuilt where Frency’s house once stood.
In the mid-1880s, a Frenchman named Francois-Jean “Frenchy” Rochas started homesteading at the mouth of Dog Canyon. He built a rock cabin…
Frenchy mysteriously met his end just after Christmas in 1894, when he was found dead in his cabin, a bullet in his chest. Although the local authorities determined it was suicide, historians believe it was more likely that someone murdered him in a dispute.
It sounds like the first chapter of a Tony Hillerman novel or a Western movie starring Clint Eastwood!
After I checked out the remains of Frenchy’s cabin, I took a walk to visit the shower house. I found the facilities clean and well maintained. After using the flush toilet and washing my hands, I went over to one of the showers and turned on the water to determine if it would get hot enough for my comfort. Yet again, I found a New Mexico state park with no hot water in the shower house. While there was NO WAY I was going to take a cold shower, I wasn’t too sad because I was headed to the hot, hot water in the bathhouses in Truth or Consequences.
You may be wondering who in the heck Oliver Lee was. According to the aforementioned New Mexico website,
Oliver Milton Lee, [was] a famous local rancher, who raised both cattle and horses, and was instrumental in the founding of Alamogordo and Otero County. Lee established his ranch south of Dog Canyon in 1893 and lived there until 1907…
During this period, Lee was involved in a controversy involving the disappearance of prominent New Mexico Lawyer, Albert Fountain, and his eight-year old son, Henry. The bodies were never found, the case against Lee and others was circumstantial, Lee was acquitted, although the mystery remains.
Oh boy! Sounds like another Tony Hillerman/Clint Eastwood plot. I guess the wild, wild West was no joke!
Apparently Oliver Lee built a ranch house too and folks can visit it, but only with a guided tour. You can call the park (575-437-8284) to find out when you can take the tour.
Those are the Sacramento Mountains you see in all the photos. They look pretty rugged, don’t you think?
After I determined I would not be taking a cold New Mexico state park shower, I went back to my van and hung out until it was time for bed. I wanted to get to bed early so I could wake up before the sun and head out to White Sands National Monument. Before bed, I decided I should visit the restrooms. Luckily I grabbed my Luci light because it was DARK out there. Some of the RVs had lights on their campsite, but there were no streetlights lighting the way to the restroom. I actually appreciated the lack of light pollution so I could get a good luck at the night sky.
I did go to bed early and I did wake up before the sun. Before I hit the road, I was rewarded with the beautiful beginnings of a sunrise coming over the mountains in the east. Oliver Lee Memorial State Park was a lovely place to wake up.
Nolagirl and I were at spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity in the spring of 2018. We were looking at the art cars and came across one that turned out to be one of my favorites of the whole day, J Gurl by Diane Bombshelter from Tucson, AZ.
According to her website, Diane Bombshelter is primarily a painter who creates on black velvet. Apparently she’s really good at painting on cars too.
This is the big picture of what her art car looks like.
Can you see the Blessed Virgin Mary on the hood of this art car?
When I got up close and starting looking at the details, I liked the car more and more.
Here’s the sacred heart painted on the back passenger door. I like the way pieces of broken mirror were used to accentuate the painting and add sparkle to the area. Also, the rough edges of the glass could cut the viewer, which I think brings to mind the pain caused by those thorns wrapped around the heart.
Much of the imagery on the car is specifically female and really celebrates feminine power and energy. For example, here’s a uterus complete with egg tubes, ovaries, developing eggs, cervix, and endometrial lining painted on the rear passenger side of the car. Again, mirrors (this time round ones to echo the roundness of the eggs) catch the light and add sparkle and shimmer. Of course the pink background evokes stereotypical femininity but perhaps also a reclaiming of female strength.
Here’s a vulva, right over the gas tank! Do you think that placement was random or a conscious choice?
The details that went into this representation of the vulva make me really happy. The yellow represents flames, perhaps, or bolts of energy. The red jewels outlining the border are also very sweet–more sparkle, more pizzazz. You may not be able to tell from my photo, but the clitoris is entirely composed of shiny little jewels. This vulva is a celebration of womanly parts. This vulva shines!
Ah, there’s Quan Yin, one of my favorite manifestations of Goddess energy. According to a Crystallinks webpage,
Quan Yin is one of the most universally beloved of deities in the Buddhist tradition. Also known as Kuan Yin, Quan’Am (Vietnam), Kannon (Japan), and Kanin (Bali), She is the embodiment of compassionate loving kindness. As the Bodhisattva of Compassion, She hears the cries of all beings…
Contemplating the Goddess of Mercy involves little dogma or ritual. The simplicity of this gentle being and Her standards tends to lead Her devotees towards becoming more compassionate and loving themselves…
Don’t you like the way I took the photo so the sunlight makes the area at the top of Goddess’ head glow? I’m pleased with that aspect of the photo, although I can’t remember if it was a conscious composition or a happy accident.
This photo courtesy of Nolagirl.
If the Blessed Virgin Mary is more your style when it comes to Goddess representation, Bombshelter has that covered for you on the hood of the car. The image of the BVM is made from flat glass marbles and is surrounded by small BVM statues. The blue flowers are artificial and permanently adhered to the hood as far as I could tell.
It’s obvious that so many loving details went into the design of this car. Even the dashboard is carefully decorated.
My favorite part of this interior decoration is the word “Goddess” spelled out in Scrabble letters. Clever!
In a 2015 article about the Art Car World museum in Douglas, AZ, Diane Bombshelter discussed pushing the boundaries of what cars are supposed to look like and represent in our society.
“Breaking that taboo opens people’s minds. It doesn’t have to be a certain way; it can be this way, too,” she said
“… I wanted to bring art to the public, instead of the public having to go to an art gallery.”
I greatly enjoyed seeing and appreciate this art car. Hopefully I’ll see it again someday and take photos of the art on the driver side.
As soon as we paid our camping fee and set our chairs out on our site in the Willow Flat Campground, The Lady of the House and I went out to explore the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park. We were on our epic road trip through Arizona and Utah, and we didn’t want to waste a minute.
The Green River Overlook was close to the campground, but I drove us there to save time and energy. There was a lot we wanted to see in our approximately 24 hours in that portion of the Park.
After I parked in the lot near the Green River Overlook, but before we got out of the van, The Lady said she wanted to play something to get me in the mood. She had her iPod and speaker prepared, and a song queued up. At the touch of a button, the Creedence Clearwater Revival rendition of “Green River” was blasting. Now whenever I hear that song (and I heard it a lot over the summer because the other clerk played the Sirius Radio Classic Vinyl station every day at work), I think of the moments right before I saw the beauty of the Green River below me.
As I’ve said before, it’s so difficult to describe the beauty I saw on every leg of this journey with The Lady. My camera wasn’t up to the task either. I fear you’ll read my words and look at my photos and think, Oh, that’s nice, without understanding the majesty of all I saw.
I fear all the good descriptive words have been taken. Surely someone has said the Green River snakes across the arid land like a magical serpent bringing life to where there would otherwise be none. I don’t know how to make you understand how stunning the landscape was (I was stunned) or the awe it inspired in me . I do know I could have stayed at that overlook for hours, watching the light play over the landscape. Alas, there was so much more to see, and The Lady and I moved on.
Folks who’ve been reading this blog since the spring may remember a post I wrote in May about spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity. Nolagirl and I attended this March 2018 festival in Mesa, AZ meant to celebrate “the imaginative spark in all of us.”
There were so many cool exhibits at the festival, including “The Night Garden,” “Community Still-Life in Clay,” and my absolute favorite, art cars!
An art car usually begins with an old or used vehicle that is need of repair. Instead of focusing on transforming the inside of the vehicle, the owner radically changes the exterior of the car. Art cars are made by ordinary people and are often driven and owned by their creator…
One of my favorite art cars I saw at the spark! festival was really a van. California Fantasy Van was created by Ernie Steingold of Burbank, CA and was on loan from the Art Car World Collection in Douglas, AZ.
According to a short article from wesclark.com, this 1975 GMC panel van was embellished by “late Burbank resident, Ernie Steingold,” a vacuum cleaner repairman.
Over the course of ten years, he spent much of his free time locating and attaching more than 5,000
Detail from California Fantasy Van–laughing Buddha
brass items to the van after completely covering it with thousands of coins.
An ABC News slideshow about the World’s Craziest Cars says Steingold welded the brass colored items onto the van. He
drove the vehicle slowly and eventually ruined its tires and brakes because of the car’s weight.
I thought this decorated vehicle was really cool! First of all, it was a van, and we all know I have a soft spot for vans. Secondly, I loved all the little doodads attached to the van. I spent a long time looking at all the items catching the spring sun.
Third, I love imagining Ernie Steingold obsessing over his creation. In a time before the widespread use of eBay and the internet, Ernie must have spent a lot of his time and energy looking for objects to add to his van creation. I bet he scoured flea markets and swap meets and antique stores and junk yards to find pieces to add to his rolling exhibit.
Detail from California Fantasy Van–Bad Dude
I wonder what Steingold’s wife and three children thought of his artistic endeavor. Did they support him in his quest? Did they enjoy the hunt for just the right additions too, or did they think Steingold was a bit daft? Did they ridicule his work, simply endure it, or actively support and encourage it?
Inspired by Ernie Steingold, I sometimes fantasize about turning my van into an art car, especially when I find cool objects that are too big or heavy for my collage work. Maybe I could decorate my van with items related to Arizona, the Sonoran Desert, and the U.S. Southwest. Maybe I could have a Route 66 van! Then I remember that once I have anything attached to the exterior of my van, any semblance of stealth I may have is gone.
I hadn’t planned to share a post on Christmas Day. I don’t usually run posts on Tuesdays, and I had a fun story from my childhood to share on Christmas Eve. I thought I had done all I needed to do.
Then I took a ride through a small Arizona town in the Sonoran Desert and saw how the locals were decorating for the holiday.
Residents of several homes in the town had decorated desert plants in their front yards by placing brightly colored, shiny, round Christmas tree ornaments on the pointy ends of the plants. The decorations really made the plants look festive, which in turn made the whole yards look festive.
At least one homeowner decorated the saguaros in the yard.
I love this trio of Saguaro Santas. Since I took this photo, I’ve seen desert dwellers in other towns do this too, and it never fails to amuse me.
I hope everyone who reads this post enjoys seeing this approach to holiday decorating in the desert, whether you’ve encountered it before or it’s all brand new.
My favorite of all the decorations was the one put out by Mother Nature.
I love the little red barrel amidst all that green. As a reader explained to me, the barrel is the fruit from last summer’s bloom. .
So Merry Christmas, friends and fans! I hope you have a lovely day blessed with peace and joy.
I took all the photos in this post. Note: I had a lot of fun adjusting the settings on some of these photos to make them POP with holiday cheer!
