About Us

Bonnie Schwartz and Gong Szeto met in New York City in the late 90s. We married there in 2000 and have lived since 2003 in New Mexico. We have done a complete tour of the north-south axis of the state, living in the way north (Taos) and way south (Mesilla/Las Cruces) for periods of time. We currently reside in Santa Fe, which we love. Bonnie is a writer, editor, reader, teacher and hiker. Hong Kong-born Gong works from his home office for an equity options brokerage based in Chicago designing software interfaces that take complex real-time data sets and simplifies them into easily apprehensible visual displays.

Juliette, our beloved bluetick-pointer cross, was adopted in Hackettstown, NJ, in the fall of 2001. She accompanied us on many adventures, including our move to New Mexico. She passed away in June of 2007 but will always live in our hearts. We called her “ditch girl” due to the many blissed-out hours she spent sniffing around the acequia that ran in front of our Ranchos de Taos home. We will never stop missing our sweet Jules.

We adopted Waylon, our loyal and protective pointer-chocolate lab cross, shortly after our move to Taos in January of 2003. We like to say that we got him at the supermarket, as that is where we found him, during a pet adoption day conducted by the Taos Humane Society. He sniffed us out immediately and convinced us to bring him home. We haven’t regretted it for a moment. He’s a smart, sensitive boy, who understands more words of the English language than most literary scholars.

We only had the opportunity to spend 8-1/2 months with Annie, our beautiful bluetick hound cross, but every moment of every day with her was incredible. We found her soon after Juliette’s passing and like to think that Jules sent her to us, knowing how devastated we were by her loss and how much we needed another dog to love. Annie was in foster care in Prescott, Arizona, when we discovered her on Petfinder.com (a great resource for humans looking for homeless pets to bring into their homes and hearts). We traveled there to meet her and knew the moment she came over to greet us that we had to bring her home. She was a sweet, tender, placid animal who also had a exuberant, playful side. We adored her and miss her more than we can say and are so grateful that she showed up in our lives.

Raise Your Last Glass (“Glass”) was Bonnie’s dark bay thoroughbred ex-racehorse, who had incredible potential to be a beautiful mount when he wasn’t trying to kill her and himself. Let’s just say he had a few issues, leavened by some wonderful cooperative days when he went to work and got into his dressage frame without objection. Bonnie was introduced to Glass in the fall of 2004 and the two of them had a mostly rewarding (though sometimes frustrating) partnership until the fall of 2007, when Cynthia D’Acosta became Glass’s new guardian, companion and trainer. Cynthia and Glass seem to enjoy one another very much. Glass especially likes the warm soup Cynthia offers him every day at her barn, full of oats and other goodies. Cynthia has recently taught Glass the Spanish walk and how to bow.

Gong, Annie and Waylon in Kathie Bell’s home in Prescott, Arizona, on the day we met Annie and knew she had to be part of our family. Check out how beautifully Waylon is sitting for the photo shoot! The first thing Annie did when we met her was to lay her exquisite head in our laps.

Willow had a wonderful new home to come home to. We live in a lovely, spacious house full of light set on five acres of forest (for our forestgirl). Annie and Waylon were both loving and calm and very patient with Willow when she came home in early December. We told them about her before we left for China and both were looking forward to her arrival. (Waylon did ask, however, “Um, what is a baby?”). The circular woven rug in the right of the picture is called the loverug. It is where many daily pets, hugs, kisses, purrs, tickles, cuddles, play sessions, sweetnothings and catnaps happen. In the rear of the picture is a sculpture made of willow branches, left for us by our landlords Ronnie and Srule.