Category Archives: travel

IRL… now

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This is a landscape story—a beautiful family moment!

So what is going on here? A young couple is introducing their baby to one of their cows and recording it on camera. Their cow sports a headdress celebrating its return to the valley, home from pastures high up in the mountains—Alpine life.

Simple family pleasures… but only with work, work with the animals, work with the landscape, work with family—very hard work and the result? Beautiful.

More landscape stories? Here’s a good link: https://www.amazon.com/author/eflaherty

Switzerland: The Real Music

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Mountains so alive with energy they breathe clouds—in and out… in and out…

Animating so many levels that I can sense… and so many more levels beyond my senses.

Remarkable solar energy exchanges stream through patches of blue sky to electrify the landscape.

With exuberant displays, creeks dance through fields and gush down mountain cliffs exploding with  excess energy into bubbling mists of white foam… all the way down… down… down…

To the valley bottom where they join lively white rivers rushing over boulders, winding through steep mixed forests, chartreuse deciduous and deep dark green conifers, rubbing against each other and bursting with an exquisite energy I can feel, I can see, I can hear.

But I can sense the sadness in older people, the farmers, trudging about daily homestead activities burdened with melancholy memories how it was 70 years ago… compared to the invasive, fast moving trains, packed full of ‘bucket-list’ tourists racing on to their next destination before their vacation is over. 

And alas, I too, am just one of those tourists… in Switzerland.

But CJ, in Tangier Gardens, Curious Tales, Orient Espresso and Dubai Sands, thought he wasn’t a tourist. Little did he know. Check it out @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

Blues?

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In Tangier Gardens, CJ thought he had the blues until he discovered Heinies, an independent–Tangier mid-twentieth century leftover, a dark basement dive, a friends-only speak-easy serving Austrian draft beer and whiskey, sporting an image of St. Augustine of Hippo behind the bar. While enjoying a shot and a beer, he heard Heinies favorite artist, Janis Joplin singing “Ball and Chain”. The blues. The real blues.

Read a free Amazon sample of my novel–lots of plants, gardens and landscape adventures–via a safe, clean, secure and direct link @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv.

A Losing Battle?

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In Tangier Gardens, CJ had so many losing battles—but in the end… Read a free Amazon sample of my novel–lots of plants, gardens and landscape adventures–via a safe, clean, secure and direct link @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv.

Or just buy Tangier Gardens NOW!

Moon Indigo

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Moon or Mood?

Which is better? Moon Indigo or Mood Indigo

Duke Ellington: https://youtu.be/RFUSD23ZXEw?si=jWVjptEpjCZx9ydU

Ella Fitzgerald: https://youtu.be/jaq9Gx9GT5E?si=EY9bdAQaB5AizYk9

Frank Sinatra: https://youtu.be/X86SgLwFdqw?si=t3a9CWC8ptSPX2h6

Or are they all shades of the same—the variety of life.

But the variety of life may not alwys be beautiful, as CJ found in Tangier Gardens. Read a free Amazon sample of my novel via a safe, clean, secure and direct link @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv. Got to find the balance. Buy Tangier Gardens today.

Undeniable Change

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Weather changes.

Climate changes.

Season changes.

Undeniable.

What is change?
Winter changes to spring. And spring is here. Undeniable.

But does human culture change? And if so, how and why? CJ was forced to ask these questions in my novel Tangier Gardens, buy it now @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

Mysterious Witch…

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Mysterious? What are you talking about?

Background:

I enjoy exploring the details of landscape and gardens. 

Hamamelis mollis = witch hazel is now in bloom everywhere in the colder areas of the northern hemisphere.

Yesterday I was walking outdoors and discovered this Hamamelis mollis hybrid in glorious winter flower. I checked for a scent and enjoyed a light but gently intoxicating fragrance. Hamamelis? Common name = witch hazel.

Why witch and why hazel? Answers online and in books inconclusive and vague. Not a hazel and nothing to do with witches. 

And the fragrance, nobody in the home-grown-health, medical or perfume communities could define or replicate that witch hazel scent. Check it yourself.

So where do I turn? 

I, a novelist, have created a protagonist in my image—obsessed with landscape, gardens and plants. In my novel, Tangier Gardens, the protagonist, CJ, explores in Morocco the landscape of northwest Africa as well as the gardens and plants of Tangier. 

You can sample his story for free @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

Before the snowdrops…

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Snowdrops? You mean snow flakes? No, I mean Galanthus nivalis, snowdrops, the earlist bulb flowers of spring.

Galanthus nivalis–snowdrops

Promises…

Before the snowdrops–the hazelnut promise.

At the same time of the year when we hope for hazelnuts, CJ in Tangier Gardens was enjoying the tangerines, the clementines, his rare relief. Read some of Tangier Gardens for free @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

Yearning for spring are we?
Tangerines and more.