Janet Fogg's Blog, page 36

Flight!

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You voluble, 

Velvety 

Vehement fellows 

That play on your 

Flying and 

Musical cellos, 

All goldenly 

Girdled you

Serenade clover, 

Each artist in 

Bass but a 

Bibulous rover! 

~  Norman Rowland Gale

Writing Retreat at Whiskey Belle Ranch

Highlands and horses and dogs, oh my! Chickens and kitties and snakes? OH MY!

Enjoyed a fantastic writing retreat last week at Whiskey Belle Ranch with Shannon Baker and Wendy Terrien. We worked hard on our books, laughed a helluva lot, and shoveled poop–real poop!–horse poop, that is.

Things did get riled up when Bubba the bull snake slithered into the chicken coop to cop an egg. Twice. But we corralled him, relocated the rascal, and carried on with our critter care while also writing and brainstorming.

Thank you, Bob and Alanna for sharing your amazing Ranch!

(And thank you, Wendy, for sharing your fabulous photos.)

The Osprey

[image error]osprey spiraling

swooping claws snag water’s prey

flapping fish in flight

~ Jim Smith

 

Photos by Richard Fogg

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Eye level

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Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
~ Henry David Thoreau.





Photo by Richard Fogg.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us...

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Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
~ Henry David Thoreau.


 


Photo by Richard Fogg.

Armed and Dangerous!

[image error]Available now from Amazon, Armed and Dangerous includes opening chapters from ten  romantic suspense novels published by The Wild Rose Press!

Lethal Refuge by Vonnie Hughes

Iron Cop by Sally Booth

Proving Ground by Stanalei Fletcher

On The Surface by Margo Hoornstra

A Serenade to Die For by Janet Fogg and David Jackson

Wounded At The Lake by Mitzi Pool Bridges

Caged Souls by Gina Leuci

Keeping Hope Alive by Fran McNabb

Broken Ties by Gloria Davidson Marlow

Peril, Passion, Peru by Eve Dew Crook

Heron Rises from the Dark, Summer Pond, a poem by Mary Oliver

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Pas de deux by Richard Fogg

So heavy

is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,

always it is a surprise

when her smoke-colored wings

open

and she turns

from the thick water,

from the black sticks

of the summer pond,

and slowly

rises into the air

and is gone.

Then, not for the first or the last time,

I take the deep breath

of happiness, and I think

how unlikely it is

that death is a hole in the ground,

how improbable

that ascension is not possible,

though everything seems so inert, so nailed

back into itself–

the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,

the turtle,

the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful

that the summers are long

and the ponds so dark and so many,

and therefore it isn’t a miracle

but the common thing,

this decision,

this trailing of the long legs in the water,

this opening up of the heavy body

into a new life: see how the sudden

gray-blue sheets of her wings

strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing

takes her in.

The first bee of spring

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Photos by Richard Fogg

 

 

The Wild Hawk

 

The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak and stared with his foot on the prey.  ~ Lord Alfred Tennyson

Photos by Richard Fogg

 

Bashful and the Bee

 

Apotheosis by Emily Dickinson

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Photo by Richard Fogg

Come slowly, Eden!

Lips unused to thee,

Bashful, sip thy jasmines,

As the fainting bee,

Reaching late his flower,

Round her chamber hums,

Counts his nectars — enters,

And is lost in balms!