I'm a writer, publishing both as SJ Rozan and, with Carlos Dews, as Sam Cabot. (I'm Sam, he's Cabot.) Here you can find links to my almost-daily blog posts, including the Saturday haiku I've been doing for years. BUT the blog itself has moved to my website. If you go on over there you can subscribe and you'll never miss a post. (Miss a post! A scary thought!) Also, I'll be teaching a writing workshop in Italy this summer -- come join us!
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Back at the Rancho
And I have to say it felt like we were just there. Like we'd been there last weekend, been gone for the week, and were now back. Though in reality, last time any of us saw the place was Labor Day 2009.
The weekend was beautiful out there, though between the Israeli raid and its aftermath, and the oil spill, I feel like Lord Prospero in "Masque of the Red Death." (If you don't get it, look it up.) Still, in case there's actually going to be a future, here's the Rancho report.
Mucho birds, more heard than seen. Since none of us is any good at birdcalls (though Jim now has the birdcall app on his iPhone, but it doesn't help) I can't tell you who's hiding in the trees, but here's who showed themselves: robins, Baltimore orioles, woodpeckers, catbirds, mockingbirds, cowbirds, tufted titmice, crows, and a hawk. At the beach, least terns were diving in water so shallow I don't know why they didn't break their necks on the sand. But they didn't. Ospreys were hunting, and a male swan emerged from the reeds on a pond and swam so nonchalantly away as I walked along the shoreline that it was obvious where his mate's nest was. Having been attacked by a swan once, though, I didn't let on to this guy that his ruse wasn't working.
As I sat over my early-morning tea a deer munched the vines against the back fence. Later that same morning a loud ruckus made me look up from my porch writing desk in time to see crows chasing a fox across the front yard. I don't know why they care; foxes can't climb trees. But they did care, and he wasn't interested enough in whatever he'd been messing with to argue.
The garden's looking good; a lot of the perennials I've put in in the last three years -- bee balm, butterfly weed, lamb's ear, echinacea, heuchera -- are finally getting established, so this year I've only put in lantana so far, and herbs in pots on the deck outside the kitchen. Every fall before we leave I plant the herbs in the ground. Usually nothing makes it through the winter but this year we arrived to a giant oregano plant. Not my favorite herb but the bees love the flowers. The Kousa dogwood right in front of my writing table has bloomed and is setting its red berries. This is the tree that provides me with birds all summer.
Yesterday was the village Memorial Day parade. It starts and ends at the firehouse, stopping at each war memorial (Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam) to lay a wreath, plus they throw one in the water for those lost at sea. A less formal, more disorganized parade you've never seen. Photos on Flickr and here:
wreath for those lost at sea
parade
parade
parade goers
The weekend was beautiful out there, though between the Israeli raid and its aftermath, and the oil spill, I feel like Lord Prospero in "Masque of the Red Death." (If you don't get it, look it up.) Still, in case there's actually going to be a future, here's the Rancho report.
Mucho birds, more heard than seen. Since none of us is any good at birdcalls (though Jim now has the birdcall app on his iPhone, but it doesn't help) I can't tell you who's hiding in the trees, but here's who showed themselves: robins, Baltimore orioles, woodpeckers, catbirds, mockingbirds, cowbirds, tufted titmice, crows, and a hawk. At the beach, least terns were diving in water so shallow I don't know why they didn't break their necks on the sand. But they didn't. Ospreys were hunting, and a male swan emerged from the reeds on a pond and swam so nonchalantly away as I walked along the shoreline that it was obvious where his mate's nest was. Having been attacked by a swan once, though, I didn't let on to this guy that his ruse wasn't working.
As I sat over my early-morning tea a deer munched the vines against the back fence. Later that same morning a loud ruckus made me look up from my porch writing desk in time to see crows chasing a fox across the front yard. I don't know why they care; foxes can't climb trees. But they did care, and he wasn't interested enough in whatever he'd been messing with to argue.
The garden's looking good; a lot of the perennials I've put in in the last three years -- bee balm, butterfly weed, lamb's ear, echinacea, heuchera -- are finally getting established, so this year I've only put in lantana so far, and herbs in pots on the deck outside the kitchen. Every fall before we leave I plant the herbs in the ground. Usually nothing makes it through the winter but this year we arrived to a giant oregano plant. Not my favorite herb but the bees love the flowers. The Kousa dogwood right in front of my writing table has bloomed and is setting its red berries. This is the tree that provides me with birds all summer.
Yesterday was the village Memorial Day parade. It starts and ends at the firehouse, stopping at each war memorial (Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam) to lay a wreath, plus they throw one in the water for those lost at sea. A less formal, more disorganized parade you've never seen. Photos on Flickr and here:
wreath for those lost at sea
parade
parade
parade goers
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