It is just about high summer at the farm, and the encroaching vegetation is peeping through the fences and the weeds are coming up in the gravel driveway and the white stone Zen garden in the front yard. Well, it had been a Zen garden. Now the white is getting mostly covered by ratty green. […]

  Actually, all the fireworks were at the bountiful dinner table set up next to the garden and just up the slope from the range, and the new grapevines and the now-productive hives. Natasha called just after I got tired of pulling weeds in the front yard. The rain from Hurricane Arthur had softened the […]

(The detective was driving a military-style vehicle like this Toyota FJ Cruiser off-road SUV. I didn’t pay much attention until I realized I was looking down the bore of a professional grade digital Single Lens Reflex camera with a telephoto lens and he started taking pictures of me. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?) I am working on […]

It is Independence Day tomorrow- we have a hurricane, first of the season, coming up the coast. Only the Outer Banks of North Carolina should get spanked, and we are hoping all we get is some rain, but preparations still have to be made. That is what hung up the story yesterday- I had a […]

I follow all the news about Detroit with a sort of grim fascination about what is next for the hapless city. An alert pal sent me a blub from the LA Times about the next disaster: Detroit is violating the human rights of residents by cutting off their water service because they have not paid […]

I should put a question mark on that title. I am speaking of course about the highest court in the land, not the best girl band in Motown’s storied history. It was an interesting weekend. A lot of pool time, and some most triumphant weather. I ran across a lot more of the story of […]

I had the deer-in-the-headlight look yesterday. There is a lot going on, only some of which is mine to talk about and I will just have to leave it at that. A splendid Friday evening lead directly to a mildly dissociative mental state Saturday morning, so when I was finished thrashing through the morning traffic […]

(Clockwise, Upper Left to Right: Jon-without avec pommes frites and his zeppelin-sized humanely raised, hormone-free slow cooked thinly sliced Steamer Round of Beef on Kate Jansen kemmelweck roll, garnished with deep-fried olives, fresh-grated horseradish and caramelized onions. The usual suspects. Pommes Frites with gravy. The long bar. Photos Socotra). Saturdays are hard- particularly the last […]

Sorry- I couldn’t resist using that phrase this morning. I ran across it when doing some research on the massive Allied force that landed in Normandy seventy years ago. There was so much to talk about then- the roundness of the number of the year and the diminishing number of the veterans who participated being […]

So, the usual suspects were gathered at the apex of the Amen Corner at Willow: Old Jim in the anchor chair, Chanteuse Mary flanking him, Jon-without and TLB looking radiant, me and New Steve on the distant end. There was also an assertive woman from the Refuge Department of F&W who insisted on talking across […]