Nov 26
We’d come to the compost heap to harvest a poke of genetically dubious
volunteer squash and melons.
Shot a shaggy shadow self.
Lifting eyes to the hills,
the compost enjoys a 360° sweep,
when the hay’s cut,
of all our ring of mountains.
Everywhere, first signs of the retarded deployment of fall colors.
October 15th used to be middle of the range for peak color
in the middle elevations,
but in this ever-warming century it’s past Halloween,
sliding towards Thanksgiving.
While, beside the monitor, the last of the color
drains from compost-ready cut flowers,
in splendid decadence.
We had a visitor, for the first time in many years,
we stalked her for an hour, just the one.
A decade ago, we’d have hundreds flock through.
If the snake can’t see you, you can’t see the snake,
brunching on burrowing mammals.
Over the south ridge, also mostly hidden,
up at ravens’ croft, a pillowy agent of change
assesses the coming of the colors
in the cerulean October sky.
The Monarch even made a movie, too big to post here.
Oct 6
If you haven’t got a Kindle Device, one shall be prepared for you.
Amazon sends a drone to your home (they know when you are sleeping)
that upgrades your refrigerator with a Kindle-reader app,
also for your computers, tablets, mobile phones (free of charge).
This modest incursion opens access to hundreds of thousands of free titles,
classic and modern, not just to mine.
Kindle Direct Publishing invites authors on their platform to trade income for exposure, tooffer their books for free every few months. It’s a simultaneous worldwide deal on all the Amazon stores (US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil). People will take a chance on free stuff who’d hesitate to pay for a book from an author unknown to them.
Give either or both of these a try and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at mystery@budcrawford.com.
The Asheville Story.
The Williamsburg Story.
A few clips from readers,
carefully culled from
from favorable reviews on Amazon
.
Fit to Curve is a skillfully written mystery with complex characters and such a fascinating plot that I’m way behind on my chores.
This series is a favorite with interesting plots and wonderfully drawn characters. Wish the author would write more of them. The type of book you don’t want to end.
A bed and breakfast mystery. Super characters, well developed. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. A mouth-watering, good read. Love the old lady with the sharp wit. I’d like the recipes, too.
The plot builds very slowly. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I liked the characters, and you get a lot of insight into them.
This is too fine a novel to be mired in the mystery/suspense ghetto. It’s a good mystery, with a complex plot, all the mystery trappings, but the characters are rounded and attractive. The theme seems to me to be a consideration of morality – not just sexual morality (or immorality), though there’s some of that too, for those who like to read such descriptions, but all kinds of morality: for how high a price might you sell your soul?
Heart Attack is a great read!
This couple are a great addition to the mystery genre. Sharp and interesting with a bit of humor and spice.
Snappy dialog. Geoff and Ellen are a great team. He has a definite intuitive method of assessing info and arriving at conclusions that baffle and irk his cohorts. Ellen is more conventional and together are a great team. Unusual mystery not easily solved.
COMING SOON:
Sep 24
Colors just happen in the fall.
Abundance of don’t-forget-to-touch-mes,
but calming now, no longer explosive.
Truth, beauty, decay.
Sumac works through orange
into its final reds.
Spent and pulling back, residue of bloom.
Quiet all summer, the chimney rose seizes the day.
Still just a scatter, it’s early days.
Weeds are flowers
you don’t have to cultivate.
Sometimes the best colors
aren’t hardly colors at all.
Sep 24
Sep 24
The day of the recent rally
a couple guys in a big ol’ red pickup
set up their sales station.
Hundreds of Made-in-China “Make America” hats
in red and white and blue
plus a dozen cases of t-shirts and banners rolled up.
When they first arrived the wind was perfect,
all four banners pulled out straight south down Haywood Street:
Trump/Pence
Don’t Tread on Me
Old Glory
and the Battle Banner of the Late Failed Secession.
Then the wind shifted ever which way
and they all went a little twitchy.
American democracy
in all its grandeur
history itself
at the curb.
Sep 24
The Asheville Ballet’s annual free performance in the park.
3-400 people watched and, if clapping and hooting count,
they enjoyed what they saw.
Photos are from last night’s performance (Friday, 23 Sept 2016).
One more show, tonight, Saturday, at 7:30 pm.
8 dances from 6 choreographers using 15 dancers,
beautiful work with poised and professional dancing.
Well-done tech — lights and recorded sound and live music
— wonderful venue, perfect weather.
Don’t miss tonight’s show, bring friends and family, maybe folding chairs.
Performance details at the Asheville Ballet website.
Sep 6
Four pictures of the same
heap of discarded flowerheads.
You have to pull the finished flowers
so the next generation of buds
will have nutrients and space enough to bloom.
The jumble of fading stems and petals
like a heap of exhausted partygoers
collapsed after the champaign’s gone
caught by the rising sun.
They’d make a lovely jigsaw puzzle.
Sep 6
Sep 6
Sep 5
Sep 5
Jul 31
The tall flowers, all at once.
![IMG_20160716_121834238[1]](https://03175fb.netsolhost.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_20160716_1218342381.jpg)
A rose leaning languorously on the wire.
Everything is full out.
The day lilies go
on
and on
in an almost silly abundance.
Hydrangea row
shows no signs of slacking off
in any of the varieties.
On and on.
The timid little flowers in the rail pot have filled out.
The under story is at maximum,
from the ground reaching up among the low branches of the trees,
all the little weeds, all the middle weeds, all the giant weeds.
And this, of course, is the first sign of the end of summer
the fullness before the finish.
Jul 31
Not much, but the bit of rain,
got the suspended droplets and the light just right,
![IMG_20160729_202240242_HDR[1]](https://03175fb.netsolhost.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_20160729_202240242_HDR1.jpg)
shined up the ornament in the grass,
of cloudy crystal quartz,
and awakened the giants underground,
to upthrust their sort-of flowers here and there,
sharing sometimes with a bird
some seeming prematurely aged,
scarlet and stark whites,
with accidental happy faces,
and with delicious detail.
While, on a different scale, walking on the grass,
the lone doe, Bones, feasts warily on bird-scattered seeds.
Later, down the lawn, shy Esmeralda and her still-spotted twins
from a finch eye view.
After nightfall, on the counter, yes, katydid,
she thought my camera might be a snack.
Outside, the affable ongoing everyday pillage of the feeders.
Our neighbor was sure he saw a bear’s butt slip into the brush
about halfway between our house and his,
a little fellow, 150 pounds max.
Jul 31
When the scarves are completed, the weft packed into the shifting sheds of the warp,
the whole cloth cut from the loom, soaped and agitated, washer-dryer finish,
cut and hemmed, imperfections clipped and made right,
only then is the trademark and care label sewn on.
A novel at the end — The End — well, there are similarities to a pile of new scarves.
Checking for broken threads, keeping tension up as long as possible.
And an editor’s like a washing machine, I suppose.
But all those plates spinning on their sticks
events unfolding because the characters are themselves,
so many ways of falling short,
the finish is never so conclusive as a scarf.
Work space, with roses red and gold.
Luckiest man.
If you haven’t got a Kindle Device, one will be prepared for you.
Amazon will send one of their drones to your home (they know when you are sleeping)
which upgrades your dishwasher and installs Kindle-reader aps on all your computers, tablets,
and mobile phones (totally free of charge).
This modest incursion opens access to hundreds thousands of titles, not just to mine.
Kindle Direct Publishing invites authors on their platform to trade income for exposure and offer their books for free every few months. It’s a simultaneous worldwide deal on all the Amazon stores (US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil). People take a chance on free stuff who wouldn’t pay for a book from an unknown author.
Give either or both a try and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at mystery@budcrawford.com.
The Asheville Story.
The Williamsburg Story.
Here are a few clips from readers,
from favorable reviews on Amazon
.
Fit to Curve is a skillfully written mystery with complex characters and such a fascinating plot that I’m way behind on my chores.
This series is a favorite with interesting plots and wonderfully drawn characters. Wish the author would write more of them. The type of book you don’t want to end.
A bed and breakfast mystery. Super characters, well developed. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. A mouth-watering, good read. Love the old lady with the sharp wit. I’d like the recipes, too.
The plot builds very slowly. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I liked the characters, and you get a lot of insight into them.
This is too fine a novel to be mired in the mystery/suspense ghetto. It’s a good mystery, with a complex plot, all the mystery trappings, but the characters are rounded and attractive. The theme seems to me to be a consideration of morality – not just sexual morality (or immorality), though there’s some of that too, for those who like to read such descriptions, but all kinds of morality: for how high a price might you sell your soul?
Heart Attack is a great read!
This couple are a great addition to the mystery genre. Sharp and interesting with a bit of humor and spice.
Snappy dialog. Geoff and Ellen are a great team. He has a definite intuitive method of assessing info and arriving at conclusions that baffle and irk his cohorts. Ellen is more conventional and together are a great team. Unusual mystery not easily solved.
COMING SOON:
Ghost Walk sample Little Fishes sample
The Charleston Story: seeking agent.
The Atlanta Story, editor ready.
Jul 3
Clamoring against the hog wire at the bottom of the herb garden
a forest of daylilies.
Most of the hydrangeas (3 of 5) were burned by the final frost,
but one, spectacularly, was not.
The yellow clusters swell and turn blue by stages.
Cousin of the giant corsage blooms
there’s the nobblier cluster clump variety.
Weeds cut close simulate a lawn and frame
the peripheral plantings and the visitors
(rabbit at 12 o’clock).
The new planters half the way towards
thrillers and spillers and fillers.
Between the leaf canopy and the marigold companions,
five jalapenos growing shoulders.
Pretty is as
pretty is.
Jun 19
walkabout, this afternoon, to find deep red with busy bee,
pale red with kanji characters,
poppy world full of self,
rising from a bed thought lost,
while yellow bush roses,
and blue fingers, which our maidens know by a grosser name,
showing some purple shared, in the same pot
or shared with satiny iridescence
shimmering around a black hole,
in purple waves
and glitter,
while at rows end, marigold companions
and almost a blooming leaf, twinning stacks climb orthogonally towards sun
and a tannish leaf kind of flowerish
all of which have names that are common
and the uncommon names are all scientific
Jun 19
Food, in process here, uses the instructions coded in the seeds
with water and nutrients pulled from soil,
drawing gasses from the air and photosynthetic magic from the sun
transubstantiates through the leaves, to become
tomatos and potatos and cucumbers and eggplant and peppers and peas.
Watching from below, a volunteer stand of fennel, seven feet high,
hunkers by the swamp and wonders about its own lush abandon.
The basil is table-ready.
While, stepping carefully down the steps in the herb garden
or rock garden, or perennial garden,
steeper than it looks,
you meet a hundred varieties of flower and herb
ground cover, moss and lichen putting on their summer dress,
and waiting appreciation, weeding and water.
Another variety of long-row work, when the wrens had stolen all
the strands of shredded coconut for their nests
from the sister of this pot,
the wool yarn left from a dozen projects was knit big
and felted small enough to snug into the basket.
While indoors, at the keyboard, I hoe my own long row, the WIP,
graced by, nourished by, the roses set beside me
by that gardener, and knitter, and 43-year companion of my heart.
Creeping buttercup is an invasive species,
not so much as we are,
but in the universe where a yard, a lawn,
must be grass blades only,
and also when it chokes
your flowers, herbs, or vegetables.
It is unfazed by mower blades.
Golden ragwort may be
discouraged by a mower,
for several days,
and prefers to make its stand
just out of reach.
Finally, the queen of lawn ornamentals
can only be controlled by broadleaf defoliants.
When we have absorbed enough toxicity from herbicides
to end our term here,
the ultimate yellow yard wort
— dandelion —
will roar back, thriving on our ashes.
In evidence, its survival guarantee.
At the edges, over the lawn line
the compositions of bloom and native grasses
are free to make and keep what friends they can.
We leave them be
beyond the perimeter of encroachment.
Our rapprochement.
May 8
Clematis clings and climbs up its arbor
clutching at the chimlee.
Almost … 
… and all the way open.
Azealia bumper bloom this year, in red.
so red,
and pink,
and whatever color this is
from the new bush down the lawn.
Calycanthus has too many common names:
carolina allspice, strawberry-bush,
sweet bubby, sweet betsy, and spicebush.
Money plant is one common name for a dozen little bushes,
mostly succulents,
that produce some sort of coin shape from the flowers.
This version makes translucent papery discs
later in the summer.
Now it’s purely purple blooms.
Cucumber magnolia flowers,
ten feet to sixty up the tree,
the first bloom are big enough for salad.
Another month, big enough to make a dinner plate.
A new-sprouted dahlia, beginning the long climb
up the flower cage.
Comfrey accidentally thriving in its own
little village of native weeds.
A lovely composition to which our contribution
was the not cutting down.
Apr 24
Spring overwhelms, reeling from so much at once.
A blurred yellow cartoon appears across the room,
fluffed out double size,
reverts to goldfinch when the preening is done
and I’ve stepped too close.
Behind the dense butt of Mr. Tom,
testing the grass, Lady Claudia Cardinal.
I’m not where they think I am.
Hornbeam fully leafed out, just in time for the hummingbird nests
of the first dozen or sixteen who’ve settled in this week.
Sugar maple seeds shower in astonishing profusion, likewise pinecones.
As every seed is sacred, we must plant them all.
Hawksbeard everywhere, a bumper bloom.
Money plants, in the pre-currency, violet phase.
Azelea not distressed at all by last week’s frost.
17 of the 20 blueberry bushes we planted 40 years ago
still flower and bear fruit.
This year we will implement some simple sharing rules
with the jays and crows and turkeys.
Dogwoods have become scarce, since the blight,
but a few young trees hang on.
Leaves ascending to the ridge.
By next week, an apparent mass of solid green,
but in the hundred shades of spring yellow greens
gradually coalescing into the grayer summer palette
of fewer darker hues.
And that will sign the end of spring.
Apr 24
Here and there, the business of spring getting done.
New arbor for the remote rose,
replacing the rotting and crumbled wooden slats
with a mosaic firefly top.
The glassy glint from the gravel under foot,
was a thumb-sized hunk of mica
that sheared into a hundred pieces at a touch.
The older bloom of the kitchen amaryllis.
The new bloom.
Little violets in the grass, in patches here and there.
The queen of weeds, ruling a million sister blooms.
Plum gnarly.
Several human spirits are trapped under the bark,
rather lumpy spirits.
Apr 24
It was a hard freeze, down to 26°F,
but just for a few hours.
A little damage, that could have been much worse.
Crab apple blooms burned, but not blasted,
abuzz today with pollinators.
Pansies in the pot, okay.
Oxeyes, or hawksbeard, is everywhere.
Swampwort, singular.
Swampwort, plural.
Early rising mayapple,
first of the millions to come.
Herb garden just after takeoff,
landing gear tucked up, and ready for the long flight.
Peat pellet hatchlings.
Hostas strangely enthusiastic,
as if they knew — something.
Camera killing azalea blossoms one week from full flower
also survived the freeze.
Cluster of pear blossoms, likewise unperturbed.
Up the orchard, all the relics that remain,
some in flower first, some in leaf first,
all accept the swell of spring.
Apr 10
Yesterday, snow blew down all afternoon, all night
with wind louder than jets,
like freight trains colliding overhead;
and last night the temperature bottomed at 26°F
for an hour or two.
Today it was sunny and 62°F, to make a mowing and pruning Sunday.
But for our transient little turkey clutch,
the proof of spring,
is the mating dance, display full-on.
A couple days ago, before the freeze,
Tom was grazing solo, a little shy,
hoping for a little cracked corn.
Today he’s pumped
but the three hens he brung
have drifted off to clean up under the feeders.
So, all this is for me.
You got your chest fluffed, your back ruff raised,
your wattle blood red, your whole head a rather freaky blue,
wings down, pumping and dragging, the beard atremble,
tail feathers high, wide spread and snappy
all while wings brushing the ground,
gobbble-gobbling sweet nothings.
An’ he could he would perform all these at once.
But he has to settle for two or three
rotating through his display menu.
Meanwhile a mini-Monarch moth,
about an inch each way
has lit to prove spring’s here to stay.
No more frosts, no more freezes,
no more wintery mix.
Just the spring.
April is the cruelest month,
if you don’t know,
ask the blueberry bushes.
from the Ellen and Geoffrey Fletcher Mystery series
For five days in April 2016, the 7th to the 11th, Thursday through Monday
Free from Amazon.com (the cover pictures below are links), available only in Kindle format.
If you haven’t got a Kindle Device, one will be appointed for you.
Amazon sends a drone to your home (they know when you are sleeping)
that upgrades your dishwasher, and installs Kindle-reader aps on all your computers, tablets,
and mobile phones (totally free of charge).
This modest incursion opens access to hundreds thousands of titles, not just mine.
Kindle Direct Publishing invites authors on their platform to trade income for exposure and offer their books for free every few months. It’s a simultaneous worldwide deal on all the Amazon stores (US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil). The marketing idea is that people will take a chance on free stuff who wouldn’t pay for a book from an unknown author. And the theory works every time: free books in trade for free exposure.
Let me know what you think: favorable comments warm the heart,
unfavorable ones teach the necessary lessons.
Comment here, or email me at mystery@budcrawford.com.
The Asheville Story.
The Williamsburg Story.
Here are a few comments from readers
from favorable reviews on Amazon
.
Fit to Curve is a skillfully written mystery with complex characters and such a fascinating plot that I’m way behind on my chores.
This series is a favorite with interesting plots and wonderfully drawn characters. Wish the author would write more of them. The type of book you don’t want to end.
A bed and breakfast mystery. Super characters, well developed. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. A mouth-watering, good read. Love the old lady with the sharp wit. I’d like the recipes, too.
The plot builds very slowly. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I liked the characters, and you get a lot of insight into them.
This is too fine a novel to be mired in the mystery/suspense ghetto. It’s a good mystery, with a complex plot, all the mystery trappings, but the characters are rounded and attractive. The theme seems to me to be a consideration of morality – not just sexual morality (or immorality), though there’s some of that too, for those who like to read such descriptions, but all kinds of morality: for how high a price might you sell your soul?
Heart Attack is a great read!
This couple are a great addition to the mystery genre. Sharp and interesting with a bit of humor and spice.
Snappy dialog. Geoff and Ellen are a great team. He has a definite intuitive method of assessing info and arriving at conclusions that baffle and irk his cohorts. Ellen is more conventional and together are a great team. Unusual mystery not easily solved.
COMING SOON:
Ghost Walk sample Little Fishes sample
The Charleston Story: seeking agent
The Atlanta Story, editor ready
Mar 21
Stepping forward and back over the equinox.
Full bloom yesterday.
Half way to full.
Bulbs are up & out.
And perennials are being what they are.
The herb sagacious.
While randomly walking by,
our cracked corn tom, proves as camera shy as huge.
Brought inside to save them from the frost.
We had to kill them to save them,
though it did not hurt us more.
This way we may enjoy their last days close up.
Four inches of snow fell here today:
the first two vanished as they landed,
the third sank slowly into the ground,
but the fourth covered everything
as the temperature fell under freezing.
Mar 14
You expect moss in the woods, on rocks,
here and there.
And along the branch
where conditions are right.
Or by the house on the stack
of old chimley stones.
But it’s spreading under the Chinese Chestnut trees
and in wide swathes,
hundreds, thousands, of square feet.
Grass will argue in some places,
but the grass has surrendered in most places.
Not exactly new this year, but accelerated,
from decades of not spreading lime,
or from some fresh factor,
from changes in the climate?
It’s soft and pretty and can’t be mowed,
ideal for a graveyard.
Mar 13
The planted bulbs are up,
each clump in turn as ordered by the hours of sunlight.
You can almost see the bee.
The buds at the branch tips
are set to explode,
some into flowers first,
some first into leaves.
Once a peach, this stump’s done,
the trunk become new wood for carving or for fire.
Blessed by a working bee.
Feb 28
The bulbs push shoots up, invisible until they blow apart.
The lichen population is not impressed by spring stirrings.
Boiling, freezing, drought or flood, they’re good, they’re perpetual.
On the shadow side, north facing, the last snow patch lingers.
The branch roars, swollen from the recent rain and the recent snow.
Passing cataracts and icicles,
from the twin springs just below the ridge, down this far,
down to the branch, on to the Mississippi, to the Gulf.
The crocus bulbs have called spring!
The light stripey ones,
delicate and bright,
already sticking to the bee’s knees as she crawls inside
to work, drunk on the golden pollen.
The deep purple clump
And the grandest bloom of all,
serene, imperial,
except for the pollen knocked around her ankles.
Rapture and ravishing.
Feb 27
Most of the year an amaryllis is dormant,
doesn’t need water, doesn’t need light.
One by one they wake
of a sudden thirsty for water and for light.
They push out a leaf, or a few leaves,
and push up a center stalk absurdly tall
with a bulb the size of a human fist.
Sometimes there are two bulbs and two huge showy flowers open.
Just for kitchen company,
a rare blue Valentine’s Day orchid.
This plant flowered two weeks
before any of the others woke up,
in defiance of last week’s snow.
Necessarily one of them has to be first,
not infrequently way before the rest.
Like the dove let loose from the ark,
looking for enough muddy ground to build a nest;
or, for the amaryllis, sufficiency of sunshine.
Orchid blooms blue and precious beyond imagining
unless it’s from food coloring.
The little buds will tell.
Feb 8
Feb 1
“I keep giving her food,
why doesn’t she go away?”
Turns out that is not how you get rid of a stray cat.
Or a resident racoon.
There’s feed on the rail, lots of food.
You just reach up and pull. Tilt and spill.
I’m getting way too wonderfully plump
to slither away in escape like this.
Why do you keep interrupting my dinner?
Eating is an every day business.
It’s a mammal thing.
