The Crawdads of Sycamore

The dirt is brown, the rocks are brown and those that are not are sun-bleached white. The buildings we passed between to get here are brown. The plants, the dead, dried stalks of them are brown, heck I even think the sky, except the part straight overhead, is tinged brown. Not that I am surprised, it is October. It is Sycamore Canyon in Riverside. It is expected. But then you head down, taking either the straight and wide path or the narrow winding one, it does not matter. You reach the bottom of the shallow slash that is Sycamore, a bottom with a green band so precise you would almost bet the bank it was laid out by an engineer. The green does not stray an unnecessary foot in any direction from that narrow thread of water.

I noticed the first one as a movement beneath the surface, in shadow then passing through the light, backing away from my approach. It was smallish and mud-colored - more brown in other words - not the mature red. I scouted along the rocks, peering into each pool in turn; they were there, all along this thread of water, this thin oasis. One, a big one, perhaps catching the eye of a passing coyote, maybe a bobcat, would move no more. Most of the others were small, but among them, with mismatched claws, were the bright red ones looking ready for the pot.

a quick visit to Jenson USA and a $20 seatpost got Herbert back in the game