Adobe Secrets

On the northwest corner of our desert ranch where dust devils dance and yucca bells chime, a crumbling adobe ruin bakes like a muffin in the searing Arizona sun. Its mud-brick walls are split and scarred by time. Chunks of mortar and shards of purple glass skirt the old foundation, and the weather-beaten door sags like a broken jaw, creaking and groaning on rusted hinges in dismal harmony with tattered wires and a dented stovepipe that clatter like castanets across the corrugated metal roof. Who could ever live here? I wondered. Then, I found out. Philip Osborne: Assistant Managing Editor of Reader's Digest reviews, "Penny Porter . . . what a storyteller!"