My hard drive died a sudden death. So until I return from a Thanksgiving holiday to Real de Catorce in the middle of mountainous central Mexico, you won't see anything new on my blog. Fortunately I have a wonderful cat-loving computer guru, Cirby at MacStuff, who takes care of the hardware, and we just have to wait for the brand new, faster, more gig drive to arrive. My backup is about a month old, which is good for me, though not good enough, so I am scrambling to recover versions of stuff I've sent around the planet!

One of the casualties was a set of photos taken this weekend at Lost Maples State Natural Area (see link at end of this post, I can't edit correctly on this computer). We took a splendid 5 mile hike through and above the maples, all gloriously gold and pink.I wish you could see the pictures. And now, they are, relegated to memory for me, which sometimes is even better.

I have been working long hours in the studio, and have two mermaids ready for an exhibit at Galeria Ortiz, a group show that opens next Thursday. All of us in the exhibit were partners or otherwise involved in the running of Textures, a fiber arts partnership gallery that we closed last January. Here's the second of the two -- she's a Garden Mermaid, the siren who longs for the earth and green plants.