I'm in Michigan now, for a few weeks. It's quite cold, grey and rainy, but it feels cozy. I'm working on 3 oil paintings and one watercolor, moving between them all. In front of my easel sits a pine cone (Ok, and a big rock from Ghost Ranch..and a little one) from, guess where?

Last Friday, my daughter and I took a rode trip to Colorado last Friday, from Albuquerque. As we were driving up in the hills just out of Taos, we saw a sign that said, "D.H. Lawrence Ranch". I slammed on the brakes. I had just been reading a book about Georgia O'Keeffe's works, and as her piece, "The Lawrence Tree" is one of my favorites, I was studying the map on how to get to the Lawrence Ranch and lamenting that I didn't have enough time to get up to the Taos area before leaving New Mexico for Michigan.

Well, son of a gun if we didn't see the ranch up there in the hills. A long, 5 mile journey on a dirt road brought us to the ranch, now owned my my daughters college, UNM. There wasn't much up there-I'm sure we didn't see all that we were supposed to see. The ranch is now used for conferences, etc.
Weirdly, there were 2 dogs on the roof. I know. Interesting.I found the tree, plaque and all, which promised the actual bench that D.H. Lawrence sat on to write each day and that Georgia O'Keeffe had lain on, looking up into this tree, day and night until she said, that of course, there was nothing else to do but paint it. The bench, sadly, was gone. But the tree was still standing proudly. I picked up a pine cone from the ground beneath it and now it's here, sitting in front of my easel, today. Which makes me happy.