The reference is to Barbara Kingsolver’s book titled High Tide in Tucson, HarperCollins, 1995. In the Library this week the cover of the book was a crab and knowing Tucson is in the desert, my interest was captured. There are many stories is the book which makes it a very interesting read. One of them was about an adventure Mrs. Kingsolver  took to Haleakala Crater in Haleakala National Park in Hawaii. If you have a wide variety of interests in looking at nature this is one spot you need to spend time in – from desert like areas with lava, to rain forest all in one day’s hike. To walk through would be what it was like hundreds of years ago and how the plants and animals have adapted to life in the Crater are incredible sites. Due to the inhospitable crater, people generally avoid it, but to go inside is a marvel of sights and sounds.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we often avoid the hard things because the easy ones are placed in front of us first. Brokerage firms make more money off smaller growth stocks so they entice us with their potential earnings. As an individual, we make more money from dividend stocks because they have the dual capacity of earning a dividend and if the company can pay a dividend, it is profitable, and profitable stocks go up. Most of the time dividend paying stocks will not double and triple, although if you bought bank stocks over the past couple of years you likely have. Your risk level is low and the return high, also many dividend stocks are earning better than your money in the bank account. If you stay with profitable companies over the long term, the value of the stock will increase over the years.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.