Ravenrock ~ Our home in the Sonoran Desert

We are blessed to live on 20 acres surrounded on three sides by half a million acres of public land . . . we have no neighbors, can see only a few lights dozens of miles away at night, generate our own power from the sun and wind, our water comes from a well, and our communications from satellite and cellular. 

It is called Ravenrock, for the reef of black rock that runs through the whole of the property, and for the pair of ravens that make their home here with us ~ actually, who share their home with us, for they were here before we were.

It is my inspiration, my dream place, my refuge that I share with my dear husband, Jonathan. As a creative person with long and deep connections to nature, it is vital to me to be a part of a natural place, where humans are just one of the many animals making their way through the world. The silence, the views, the other lives ~ all give me peace and inspire my work.

I will continue to post here about our little cottage, my studio, and the home we are building bit by bit in this corner of the Sonoran Desert.

Books by Roseann and Jonathan Hanson

My husband Jonathan and I have written many natural history and outdoor adventure travel books together. He has written several on his own, and I have published one title by myself.

Our books are very special to us, especially our nature books, because each one represents a real part of us ~ a passion for a place, for wild things, for wildness. The creative process for writing a book is the same as that for creating jewelry, cutting a cabochon, or even cooking ~ it is a sum of many parts, carefully wrought, over time, into a final work to be shared.

All of our nature books combine our writing and artistic skills, and most of them drew upon my daily nature journals. We each write separate chapters, or we alternate writing sections or sidebars. Jonathan is a wonderful scientific illustrator, and I field sketch. Below are some of our nature books, and reviews from fellow naturalists, authors, and media. I've also added a few scans of almanac pages, and click here to hear a reading by me for a radio program in Tucson, of the introduction to the month of May.

A full list of our work is on our JandRHanson.com website, here.

"An exquisite guide book for what to look for in this intriguing area." - Jim Harrison

"This book is vibrant with fresh insights into a landscape that many of us barely know but already love." - Gary Paul  Nabhan 

"A reference guide both scientifically accurate and immediately understandable . . . a welcome addition to all bookshelves and backpacks." - Tucson Weekly

"The Hansons analyze, categorize, and bring to life every month of the year." - Tucson Citizen

"A valuable reference tool for both casual and detailed scientific inquiry." - Desert Leaf

"An abundance of information in short and sprightly bites, adding up to a definitive guide." - Santa Cruz Valley Sun

"Someone recommended this book to me when I first moved to Tucson after living 'up north' all my life. I had relocated to Arizona for a job and was in somewhat of a state of culture shock at the lack of green grass, no four seasons, etc. This book was a real god-send for me. It breaks the year into 12 months and describes what is happening in the environment in terms of climate, wildlife, plant life, and the constellations. It is filled with fun-facts and things to do and watch for, so adults and children alike will find this book fun and interesting to read. It is fascinating learning about the uniqueness of the Sonoran desert and it made me really appreciate how incredible and diverse it really is! I now recommend this book to everyone (native or newcomer) and buy it regularly as a 'welcome' gift to my colleagues that relocate here from other parts of the country. I highly recommend it." - B. Gores, Amazon.com review

"To adequately describe a place like the San Pedro River, if such a complex and fascinating place can ever be adequately described, one must know it like an old friend. To reach that level of familiarity, one has to have spent countless hours with the place, gaining an intimate knowledge of the multitudes of nuances and wonders to which the casual visitor will be oblivious.

If a person gains such a level of understanding of a great natural area, and if that person happens to be an accomplished writer, a worthwhile and entertaining book may be the result, if we, the readers, are lucky. Fortunately, that is precisely what has happened in the case of the book, The San Pedro River, by Roseann Hanson.

Few areas in our country are more biologically rich than the San Pedro River. This small river and the riparian forest that surrounds it are home to more species of wild animals than virtually any other area of equal size on the North American Continent. Nearly 400 species of birds have been seen there. The San Pedro was named one of the Last Great Places in the Northern Hemisphere by the Nature Conservancy. Having been there, I would not hesitate to drive thousands of miles to walk its banks again.

Ms. Hanson knows the San Pedro River from having roamed its forests over much of her life. Too, she is an alert observer and an excellent writer with a deep understanding of people and wildlife, and a real gift for description. Her rendition of the call of a yellow-billed cuckoo was so well done that I instantly recognized the bird before reading its name later in the text. I could hear the call; it took me back to the West Virginia Appalachians where I grew up, and to the haunting song of what we then called the rain crow.

If you have any interest in birding, in wildlife, in ecology, in the Southwest, in the preservation of certain of our most precious natural areas, or in the San Pedro River itself, or if you simply have a desire to sit down and read something that can transport you to an incredibly interesting outdoor area, buy at least two copies of this book. You'll want to share it with friends, and you won't want to be without a copy yourself." - Amazon.com review

* * * *

In summer 2009 Jonathan and I are starting a new book project together, a natural history journal and essays on our years as naturalists in the remote Brown Canyon, on a national wildlife refuge. And Jonathan is still working on his book of short stories. I will be publishing these titles through my company, ConserVentures, under the impress Natural Selection Press.

I will have a few of our books available for sale soon, and meanwhile please buy our books from your favorite independent bookseller or Amazon.com.

Keeping a journal

A Mini Workshop ~ Getting Started

What is a journal?

In the simplest sense, a journal is a record.

A journal can be:

•  a chronicle of your daily activities - factual, or

• ephemeral - thoughts, impressions, dreams

• descriptions of sights, sounds, tastes, and smells

• it can be just words, or

• images or 

• things - ticket stubs, restaurant napkins, bottle labels, stamps, feathers, leaves

• or a combination of all of the above.

There are no hard and fast rules. Rules choke you. Throw them out the window.

In this mini workshop I focus on the creativity - whether you are using traditional or electronic methods of recording. 

Choosing the Format: Paper or Electronic

Advantages of a paper journal:

• portability, convenience, immediacy, reliability: jot in it whenever the mood strikes
  
• romantic, historical
  
• tactile, 3-dimensional; vehicle for saving objects
  
• inexpensive
  

Disadvantages of a paper journal: 

• length is finite or limited by nature
  
• hard to reproduce or share or protect (back up)
  
• secondary steps needed to combine images
  

Advantages of electronic journaling (self-contained on the computer, or on the internet, like this blog):

• fast, good for words
  
• theoretically infinite space
  
• easy to combine with digital images
  
• easy to add sounds and video - especially with new technology like FlipVideo
  
• easy to back up and share
  

Disadvantages of electronic journaling:

• not tactile
  
• skills needed
  
• expense (computer, software, hardware)
  

Tools for Journaling

Traditional Notebook Journal

Choose a journal with acid- and lignin-free paper. That will keep the pages from yellowing and the writing from fading, which will make your journal last even longer.

• Custom one (mine) - paper bought bulk, cut and drilled

• Commercial - Moleskine, Clairefontaine 

Make a little tool kit.  Watercolor pencils and "water brush" (a brush with a water reservoir - perfect for quick painting), pigments, glue sticks, double-tape, scissors, envelopes, Moleskine accordion file, good pens (I like Micron 02 permanent / archival black ink) as well as fountain pens and more creative ink.

Electronic Notebook Journal

Choose a product for recording your journal in your computer.

• Microsoft Word or Apple's Pages

• MacJournal and WindowsJournal by Mariner Software

• Notebook by Circusponies.com

Notebook and Mariner products allow you to publish online but work offline.

In the case of online journals, you can buy a membership in one with many tools and design options or use more basic ones for free. Here are some of the free ones:

• livejournal.com

• journalscape.com

• myspace and facebook

With these sites, you have the option of making entries public, private, or friends only. The friends-only option is readable only to other people who subscribe to the site and have you listed as a friend or who have the password that you created to protect your entries. 

Just make certain that these companies do not try to 'steal' the rights to your work, that you own your material and are not giving away your ownership by 'agreeing' to their terms and conditions (Facebook famously tried to steal all rights to all words and images posted on their pages . . . )

Hybrid

• Hybrid: you can create your work electronically and then use that media to publish a book. 
  
• You can combine traditional journaling - objects, receipts, labels, etc. - and affix them into the printed book.
  

Inkubook.com, Mac books (iPhoto) are examples of sites and services that do this.

Methode

There are two types of people - when confronted by a blank journal.

• is excited, sees open possibilities, and creative juices start flowing

• is stricken by the terror of the blank page

"Lower your standards." - William Stafford's cure for writer's block

Open that blank journal or open a new document and just begin.

But how?! Here is some advice.

First, Have a Routine

Chances are that if you are here, you yearn to be more creative in your life.

One of the best tips to focus on that is to make quiet time in your life. An hour in the morning with coffee or tea and sunrise and birdsong, writing in your journal. Or in the evening, a glass of wine and sunset.

I can’t stress enough how important that is. Even if you still are strangled or don’t know what to write - just open the pages, and record empirical things - weather, mileage, a list of wildlife or plants, names of places or people.

Use All Your Senses

If you’re really not sure how to begin recording your trip, think about what really matters to you.

• Did the Muslim call to prayer you heard in Istanbul five times a day move you? Describe its sound.
  
• Did you have an unforgettable meal in Bahia de los Angeles? Tell what you ate and describe the taste, texture, and smell of the food.
  
• Each of us remembers or is moved by different things. For some of us it’s people - for others, animals. Ornament. Color. Light. Smells. Simply record them.
  
• Even if all you record are the names of restaurants where you ate, the hotel where you stayed, or the people that you met, and any snippets of the language you picked up - it makes the accounts of your travel experiences much more complete.
  
• Quotes - if you know a quote that makes you think of your destination, include that in your journal. If quotes seem beyond you, then record favorite local slang.
  

"Too many people delude themselves by thinking the mind is dangerous and must be left out. Well. The mind is dangerous and must be left in." - Robert Frost

"Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Art is a big mistake." - Allen Ginsberg

Suggested Writing Exercises

Sometimes exercise is good for you. Here are some good ones to try if writing is tough for you and you need to break free of the Terror.

30 minutes alone: 

Watch the behavior of an animal (bird, insect, squirrel...) or flowering plant or tree and write field-note style on everything you observe about that animal, without any interpretation. Fill the pages with as much "thick description" as possible. Alternatively, you could do this for a particular site, and describe the vegetation, topography, birdlife, etc., in as much detail as possible. (Knowing names of things are not so important as describing the details of what your senses take in.) 

Could repeat this with different animal or plant. If you choose an animal, note something specific about its behavior, such as, record what it pays attention to that you normally do not.

Walk and Record

Walk for a few minutes (e.g. 10) in a nearby natural setting andconsider how that place connects you with someone significant in your life.Write on that connection for 20 minutes without lifting your pen from the page.

From Joan Logghe, amended by me:

1. List favorite words you like the SOUND of, first ones that flash into

your mind. 2 minutes. Go.

2. For each of these nouns, invent a simili or metaphor (is like, is)

writing the FIRST thing that flashes into your mind (this should go

rapidly, 10-15 seconds per word). You can preface this by explaining that

this is the perfect opportunity for cliches to rear their ugly heads, but

when you write _immediately_ from the senses and from the inner self (or

shadow self), our words connect with energy and power. Metaphor works at

both an intuitive and a logical level. (Eg. the lake is a potato pancake

gone cold.)

the river current

a mesa

my mother

the sky

my father

the desert

owls

the pond

a mosquito

wild horses

rain

Other ideas:

1. Write about the geography of your childhood - OR map it out with a marker on a large sheet of newsprint. 20 minutes.

2. Begin with "one true thing" and write for 15 minutes - see where it takes

you. (e.g. I wrote pieces starting with "I had an old scarf I picked up in Kathmandu," and "My father wore iddy-waddies." This can be amended to something nature-related, such as "Cottonwoods turn yellow in autumn" or "I

am in love with ravens.")

3. Write about your "fierce attachment" to a place. 20 minutes.

4. Tell who you are through landscape. "I am warm red sandstone in evening light. I am raven croaks and aspen leaves spinning on the wind. My

past is all whitewater plunging into mountain pools. My father was the moon, my mother a marsh filled with birdsong..."

Artifacts

If you are like me, you take many pictures and collect a lot of memorabilia - artifacts. By the time you arrive home, remembering everything you did each day can be almost impossible and organizing a pile of collected memorabilia can be daunting. With a little tool kit and pre-prep, it’s actually not all that hard to do it, even on the road.

Tools

• Journal that will stand up to ‘stuff’ - Clairfontaine, Artist Sketchbook. Prepare pages with Gesso - every other or every third (to stand up to glue, etc).   http://www.vickerey.com
• Moleskine accordion file
• Glassine or other envelopes
• Simple glue sticks, tape, scissors
• Pens, a few colored pencils (Prismacolor) or watercolor kit (mini)
• Tins (old Altoid tins are perfect)

What are some items you might use?

• ticket stubs
  
• plane boarding passes
  
• menus
  
• food labels
  
• information from travel brochures
  
• coins
  
• paper money
  
• feathers (but remember, technically it is illegal to posses animal parts if from rare / endangered animals)
  
• small stones
  
• packaging
  
• soil - for color
  
• berries - for color
  

Keep it simple & everything goes.

Create pockets out of small bags you received when buying souvenirs for holding things that you don't want to cut up or adhere to the journal.

Keep the album in your bag and pull it out when ever you have some down time.

If you are traveling with others, ask them about their most memorable parts of the day; it can help you remember thing that you had forgotten about.

Artistic tips:

• Use colored tissue paper to create layers - Golden Gel Medium (soft/gloss) for the adhesive, and apply the gel with a sponge brush. While the page dries, place a piece of waxed paper over it.
• You can also highlight work with different types of leafing... gold, copper, etc. Adhere it with gel medium, too. 
• Don't get caught up in using the most/only perfect adhesive for the job; gel medium works well for almost anything. When it won't hold, use Household Goop.
  
• Source: http://www.aisling.net
  
• Reference: Visual Chronicles: The No-Fear Guide to Creating Art Journals, Creative Manifestos and Altered Books (Paperback) by Linda Woods (Author), Karen Dinino (Author) 

More

What can your journal become?

Books. Articles. Personal satisfaction.

Our books, San Pedro River: a Discovery Guide, and the Southern Arizona Nature Almanac were both created largely from my daily nature and travel journals.

Final thoughts

Words are powerful. The moment an ephemeral thought or observation is captured and applied to physical existence, that thought or idea or fact takes on another dimension. 

It has weight, can be used, passed on, accessed. Most good essays begin with a journal or field book entry.

Another good reason to keep a journal is that, by paying attention to and recording life’s events around you, you tie yourself more firmly to place—be it your back yard or a whole mountain range.