Ken and I live in Tucson, AZ where the sun shines 360 days a year. It's hotter than Hades here, but they say it's a dry heat - meaning its not as hot as a humid heat. If you believe that than a blast furnace isn't as hot as a sauna and there aren't Cartels in Mexico.

We love it here anyway, chapped lips, cracked fingers and mounds of sunscreen not withstanding. We and half of our eight kids and 15 grandchildren still live in the SW, a few have left for Florida and one family is still in cold country, near Lake Michigan.

I started selling Native American Indian jewelry in the early 1980's when I was living in central Florida. Things were just getting started when along came my daughter Virginia. At first I put her in a stroller and took her with me to the shows, that worked pretty well until she started walking. She was off and running and I found she didn't like waiting while I spent time with the customers. She'd scoot around a corner, or head for open spaces before I could turn around. Fortunately vendors are pretty good at watching out for one another, but the slight of hand of the occasional irrebuttable larcenist set me back a few times so I set aside my little collection of bobbles and waited 25 years until my kids were grown to try again.

Howling Moon Traders started while i was working in the Chemistry Department and taking classes in the Native American Studies Program at the University of Arizona. I started volunteering at the SWIAF held at the Museum on campus, this lead to growing relationships with local artists around the SW. I began purchasing jewelry and pottery straight from the artists, once I got a small inventory my husband and I started doing shows. I continued working and doing shows almost every weekend for the first year. The following year we decided doing shows would be enough of an income for us. We added selling guns to our inventory and we've been doing this full-time for six or seven years years now.