A Slow Trot Home

1958 was the year life came into focus for Lisa Sharp. Her mother, newly divorced, began the move from California to the San Rafael Cattle Company, a 22,000-acre cattle ranch south of Patagonia, Arizona. Leaving the city life behind, Lisa and her family traded paved roads, dependable electricity, and telephones for wide open spaces, prairie grass, horses, and cattle.

Most eight-year-olds would have been homesick. When she first walked into the ranch corrals, "I became a part of that world as easily as that first shoot of spring grass. . . . I was home."

A Slow Trot Home stitches together vignettes about the author's mother, ranching, cowboys, and a love of the land that is passed down through generations. With poignant reflections on ranch living along the US/Mexico border, Lisa resurrects an era that, for so many of us, endures only as a memory.

Lisa grew up on her family's cattle ranch in southern Arizona. Marriage and career took her to California and New Mexico, but the love of land and open space stayed with her. She returned to the ranch in 1993 and lived there until it was sold in 1998. She now lives in Taos, New Mexico.

"Writing has opened another world to explore."