We just returned from spending spring break in Darwin, CA, the place where my sculpture mentor, Gordon Newell, lived and carved stone after the Sculpture Center of Monterey was torn down, the place where I journeyed on innumerable pilgrimages to carve and bask in the desert’s silence, the place where I brought Henry on our…

About three months ago before Thanksgiving, I noticed that Esperanza had an itchy place along her belly line, a few inches forward of her udder. She would point to it with her nose and lift her right hind leg up high in a kind of horse-yoga three-legged stool, patiently waiting for me to scratch her…