Welcome to my collection of interests. My home base is in the Sierra Nevada foothills midway between Fresno, California, and Yosemite National Park. In March 2006, I moved to  Oak Creek, a manufactured-home park in Coarsegold, California. It's only 5 miles from our former home, a fifth-wheel trailer in an Escapees co-op RV park called Park Sierra.  I still have a few ties to Park Sierra friends, but my life has changed considerably in the last few years.  I joined a group of gals here who like to practice line dancing twice a week, and play bunco once a month.

Birding was my passion for 25 years, but less than wonderful vision and hearing eventually led me down a slightly different path:  identifying and photographing Sierra wildflowers, which has been a major task of mine for the last several years and a great joy. The nice thing about wildflowers is that they stay relatively still! The bad thing is that there are so many of them that they can be very difficult to identify.  I have no training, so I learn the hard way.  Eventually, I got hearing aids, and after cataract surgeries I can see much better (without glasses yet!).  Still, my hard-core birding days are past.

My online Wildflower Identification Guide features photos of Sierra foothills plants found at an elevation between 1,200 and 2,200 feet in the Coarsegold area.  I add new species and better photographs each year, and humbly correct past mistakes as I learn more.  People often contact me for identifications, requests to use my photos, or simply to thank me for the guide, which is the best pay in the world.  If you are searching for a wildflower, click on WILDFLOWER INDEX to get started.

I have a great interest in Gardening, particularly roses, both tea and miniature.  This fall, I dug up all the tea roses.  I'm tired of fighting the deer.  Although they will eat the miniatures I grow in pots, they don't like them nearly as well.  A few years ago, I began a wildflower plot in the common area behind the house.  It's slow work getting wildflowers started and keeping weeds out, but I enjoy trying.

My Family page has a gallery of photos, and I try to add new ones from time to time. The collection on my Friends page includes a few of my four-footed pals.

If you'd like to see some critter photos, check out my Wildlife page. I've included a small butterfly list for the area, and I've added lots of bugs. Caution:  I know very little about insects, so you may find misidentifications.

I'm not On The Road in an RV any more, but I travel quite a bit, going on at least one cruise a year as well as shorter trips in this country.  I miss RVing, but I feel very fortunate to be able to see new things while I'm physically able.

I no longer copyedit for a living, but occasionally someone needs an editor for a privately published book. I edited nonfiction books as a freelancer for many years, even on the road. Therefore, on the Copyediting page I've included a few things to prove that old editors never die—they're too busy revising the wording for their tombstones.

A few books I've edited in the last several years are Live Again, Die Again and its sequel Live Again, Love Again by Nila J. Gott. These novels, set in both modern and Civil War times, offer a can't-put-it-down read.  Nila's latest work of fiction is a prequel to that series titled Dream Again.  A favorite of mine is "RVers: How Do They Live Like That?" (Answers For Those Who Wonder) by Judy Farrow and Lou Stoetzer. I also enjoyed editing the late Rex Goulding's delightful So You Want To Be An Airline Pilot.

I've added a Crafts page, which features one of my crafty interests—Dutch embroidered cards.  I haven't done any cards in two years now, because I've replaced that time with a new passion:  genealogy.  One of these days I'll make a page for it.  I've come to it rather late, but anyone who enjoys a good mystery novel will understand the thrill of the hunt for ancestors.  I'm not looking for famous people; I simply want to know more about those who came before me.  The best part is finding many "cousins" also engaged in family research.  You may have seen the TV series "Who Do You Think You Are?" sponsored by Ancestry.com.  I built my tree using Ancestry.com, and any information I can gather will be my legacy to younger family members who may someday inquire as I did.  Oh, how I regret not asking my elders more questions!  If any family or friends wish to view my tree, I would be happy to issue an invitation.

If any of these topics interest you, follow these page links. Then come back and sign my guestbook (bottom of page)!