JIM'S LIFE

From 1997 -- when I ended my career as a freelance writer/naturalist -- to the summer of 2003, I lived at a little camp in the woods of southwestern Mississippi. That's me preparing breakfastover my morning campfire, in my "outside kitchen." Most of my hundreds of Web pages and the first three years of my Naturalist Newsletters were produced inside the little trailer at the right in the photo.

In the summer of 2003, for a year I moved my trailer to another spot near Natchez, where I continued just as I had at my other camp. At this new location I focused more on permaculture. You may be interested in seeing the solar cooker some friends and I constructed and which I used -- when the sun was shining. The picture below shows me in October, 2003, standing among the goldenrods in the "Loblolly Field" near my trailer at this second location.

Since late 2004 I have bounced around, collecting notes on the plants and animals of  California's Sierra Nevadas, central Kentucky, southwestern Texas, the central Mexican state of Querétaro, Mexico's southernmost state, up against Guatemala, Chiapas and then, for several years at various places in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. At Hacienda Chichen adjoining the ancient Maya ruin of Chichén Itzá I lived in the traditional Maya home shown below.

As of 2023 I'm living in a small village in upland central Mexico.