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email claudette@sftumbleweeds.com
website http://sftumbleweeds.com
Claudette Sutton
Claudette Sutton has been living and writing in Santa Fe since 1985. Two months after moving here, she met her future husband, Charles Brunn, and three years later their son, Ariel, was born. Husband and son have been serving graciously as writing fodder every since.
In 1991, Sutton created The Tot’s Hot News, a newsletter for parents of children birth through preschool. In 1995, the newsletter morphed into Tumbleweeds (www.sftumbleweeds.com), a quarterly publication for parents of children of all ages. She continues to serve as editor and publisher of Tumbleweeds, now in its 15th year. For several years, she wrote the popular “Family Café” column in the Santa Fe New Mexican and now writes “Eye on Families” every other week for SantaFe.com. She is writing a book about the last summer before her son’s departure for college, while keeping her eye on doings of other children and families around town.
What Lies Beneath the Snow
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds
Mar 4, 2010
Somewhere in the ground, under the foot of snow that still covers our yard, are hundreds of bulbs that Charles and I planted this fall. That at weekend in October, before the trees had lost all their leaves, before we put away the barbecue tongs and rolled up the garden hose, planting daff odils, tulips and grape hyacinths didn’t require a leap of faith. It was just one of those things we do sometimes in the fall, like freezing chile and picking raspberries at the Salman Ranch. Bulbs are kind of a gardener’s savings plan: you put them in the ground, wait several months, and collect the payoff in the spring with compound interest.
Turncoats to Teammates
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds
Sep 1, 2009
Not so long ago in American history, “collaboration” was a dirty word.
A collaborator was someone who aided the enemy: the Nazis during World War II, the communists in the Cold War. Perhaps more than just a linguistic anachronism, the word indicated defiance of American values of independence and individuality; to collaborate was inherently sinister, morally corrupt.
Growing Community
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds
Jul 31, 2009
“Welcome to our community space,” Sue McDonald said as I arrived at the Acequia Madre Elementary School garden on Wednesday. “A lot of things are happening here. We’re weeding and nibbling and doing a lot of visiting.”
A lot was happening indeed. By 10 on a summer morning this was a multi-generation, multidisciplinary, even multi-species affair. Under a shaded ramada, a few children and adults were making sun prints with fresh-picked flowers and leaves. Others ate watermelon slices, tossing the rinds into the nearby compost bed. Three little dogs tussled in the dirt.
A Viowin Wuv Affair
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds
Jul 16, 2009
Strong, lively violin notes drifted through the crowds at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum at their 20th birthday party in June. Since this was Bach and not “Go Tell Aunt Rhodie,” I had to do a double-take on the young musician: a boy barely big enough to describe as a wisp of a thing.
Becoming History
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds
Jul 3, 2009
Two sisters, 8 and 5, wove their way through the throngs of visitors to the New Mexico History Museum on its opening on Memorial Day weekend, getting their own bead on history. The big girl had her arms wrapped around her little sister’s chest from behind and led her from one display case to the next, reading bits from the wall texts and embellishing with flair.
Raspberry Rendezvous
A trip to Salman Raspberry Ranch in Mora
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds
Oct 21, 2009
One day, Little Sal went with her mother to Blueberry Hill to pick blueberries. "We will take our berries home and can them," said Little Sal's mother. "Then we will have food for the winter."
We make unlikely parallels, Charles and I, out there at the Salman Raspberry Ranch in Mora, to Little Sal and her mom, in Robert McCloskey's children's classic, "Blueberries for Sal." Eastern New Mexico doesn't share much geographically with the Maine woods, but that's us in spirit: a scruffy-haired girl in overalls and a mom in a prim cardigan and sensible shoes. Don't ask me which one's which. We're each a little bit Sal, happily munching berries as we wander along, and a little bit Sal's mother, steadily filling a basket with berries to take home.
