September 11

I learned this amazing trick from a nun I once knew: if you snap cottonwood twigs at just the right spot you can see these little stars.

These cottonwood stars were collected on Highway 118, between Alpine and Fort Davis - at a place called Calamity Creek Ranch that has a rest area beside it. And the rest area is shaded by huge cottonwoods growing beside what we can assume is Calamity Creek.

Lubbock, Texas

September 7

The view from the top of Wild Rose Pass, on State Highway 17, between Fort Davis and Toyhavale. The thin wisp of a cloud built up quickly into an early-afternoon thunderstorm.

Jeff Davis County, Texas