Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
The pale February sun had barely lifted itself above the ragged eastern Black Mountain hills when I first spotted Paulette making her way through the garden. From my vantage point on the ridge—camera in hand as always—I watched her emerge from the ranch-style home, two old milk jugs dangling from her weathered fingers. Some folks might call it peculiar, my habit of rising before the sun to capture the way light first touches the Mojave Desert. But after eighty-two years on this earth, most spent with dirt under my nails and horizons stretching before me, I've earned my peculiarities.
Paulette's cactus garden, perched on that gentle slope overlooking Lake Mohave's strip of silvery expanse, tells a story I've been documenting for nearly twelve years now. It's become something of a ritual, these silent mornings watching her tend to her desert children while I tend to my photographs. This particular morning had a special quality to it—almost crisp enough to see your breath, with a gentle breeze carrying the promise of spring, though winter hadn't quite released its grip on the Mojave.
nmosg.com
The pale February sun had barely lifted itself above the ragged eastern Black Mountain hills when I first spotted Paulette making her way through the garden. From my vantage point on the ridge—camera in hand as always—I watched her emerge from the ranch-style home, two old milk jugs dangling from her weathered fingers. Some folks might call it peculiar, my habit of rising before the sun to capture the way light first touches the Mojave Desert. But after eighty-two years on this earth, most spent with dirt under my nails and horizons stretching before me, I've earned my peculiarities.
Paulette's cactus garden, perched on that gentle slope overlooking Lake Mohave's strip of silvery expanse, tells a story I've been documenting for nearly twelve years now. It's become something of a ritual, these silent mornings watching her tend to her desert children while I tend to my photographs. This particular morning had a special quality to it—almost crisp enough to see your breath, with a gentle breeze carrying the promise of spring, though winter hadn't quite released its grip on the Mojave.
nmosg.com
