Beyond divining dogs and the evil eye, God affects his plan

Felix, now 83 years old and almost deaf, grew up on a desert farm in southwest Peru near the Nazca lines. An oddly dressed European lady occasionally walked through his village by herself headed for the hills and carrying a broom. The kids called her the witch, and couldn't imagine what she was up to. Only later, as an adult, did he recognize her as Maria Reiche, the German mathematician who was largely responsible for mapping and describing the Nazca lines. These immense pictures of animals, etched into the flat planes, are a composite of shallow troughs that eventually fill with windblown sand, and only by sweeping the sand from them with her broom could their character be clearly seen. JOHN BUERER

In the fridge of life

The potbellied house with its foundation of round river stone was just a winter stop, but a transition from the mysteries of the Carolina East to the mysteries of the California West for a four-year-old (do people out there savor brook cooled watermelon, juice dripping, as the sun slides away from a sweltery, dusty day?). JOHN BUERER