One Hundred Posts! To mark this milestone, Quill Gordon is pleased to present this exceptionally rare photo of a SIX AND A HALF FOOT MAN EATING SALMON: Continue reading
Humor
Winter’s Back is Broken (and Mine is a Mess)
Meteorological winter, the coldest (on average) 1/4 of the year, is over. Winter’s back is broken but, as I’ve written before, you can’t shoot winter in the head and put it out of its misery. We must wait as winter kicks and fights with everything it can muster at this late stage of the game, while spring slowly asserts itself, a little bit at a time. Unfortunately, on days like yesterday, when a warm(-ish) breeze from the south brings mild temperatures and rain against driving snow and the cold(-ish) air still hanging on, both seasons end up looking foolish and the dooryard fills with slush.
We’ve had enough snow this winter that we were saying, “yeah, yeah, we get it” about four feet ago and we are ready to move on to the next season, which around here is mud. A lot of barns and other buildings collapsed last month, crushed by the weight of snow. Crews dug and raked as best they could, trying to lighten the loads on other roofs, but poor timing, gravity and uneven weight distribution continued to wreak destruction. Even with the sounds of catastrophe ringing through the valley, it was tempting to look at the roofs under my care, scoff, and say, “Hah! They’ve held more snow than that!”
I admit here and now, that is exactly what I did. Continue reading
Categories: Humor, nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter
Tags: Eugene, ghoti62, Humor, nature, quill gordon, roof rake, Rural Life, Vermont, winter
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In a Rut, But at Least I Have Crumpets
(If you stopped by hoping for a fishing story, perhaps you’ll enjoy this: “Fishing Hurts”)
It is easy to get stuck in a rut this time of year. The hours of daylight may be increasing but winter is just getting started and spring seems a long way off. Most years we get a bit of a break from the cold and snow when the “January Thaw” sets in and temperatures climb to above freezing for a few days but this brief warm spell is one gift horse I always look straight in the mouth.
Thawing means melting. Ice and snow change to water and dirt turns to mud. If that dirt happens to be a road, things can get interesting fast, especially with fuel trucks, UPS vans and people from other places driving back and forth. Most of the people from other places this year are from New Jersey, renting a house up the hill during ski season. I don’t know where they are headed four and five times a day — there just ain’t much to do in our little village — but up and down they go, making a real mess of things but mid-winter thaws are temporary. Cold weather returns and the road freezes again, leaving the rest of us to deal with the tracks those people made while we (wisely) stayed home.
Categories: Humor, Rural Life
Tags: crumpets, ghoti62, Humor, outdoor blogger network, owl jones, quill gordon, Rural Life
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Butt Wind
Sometimes it’s not what you say …
… it’s how you say it.
The sign at Singleton’s Store in Proctorsville means the same thing no matter how you say it.
On Thin Ice
(This Blog entry was my submission to a Sportsman Channel
and Outdoor Blogger Network writing contest.)
A major credit card company had a contest, a few years back, in which one could win one’s own private island. The television commercials showed groups of very young, very attractive people partying down on a tropical beach, dancing the night away, without a care in the world. The magazine ads featured a white sand beach, turquoise water and palm trees, and all of the ads included the tag-line “What would you do?” Continue reading
Categories: Humor, Vermont, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, Humor, ice, Lake Champlain, outdoor blogger network, quill gordon, Savage Island, sportsman channel, Vermont, winter
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It’s Not Over ‘Til It’s Over
The end of the season is nigh, here at Fish and a Barrel Pond, but it ain’t over yet and I should have known better than to write like it was as I did a couple of weeks ago when I got all sentimental and gooey in my post “Mostly Photos, from Somewhere in Vermont“. A string of sunny days full of blue skies and brook trout interspersed with starry nights scented of bourbon and wood smoke can do that to a guy.
It’s been almost six months since the 2010 fishing season began for the members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society and it was nice to spend another Saturday night by the fire, sipping toddies and swapping stories with a swell bunch of fellows but on Sunday afternoon, as I stood in the road waving good-bye, a chill, northern breeze boxed my ears and tossed my hat in the ditch, reminding me it is the end of their season, not mine.
All week long that breeze blew. It took the sunshine away, replacing it with steady rain, and by Thursday afternoon the breeze was a flag-shredding gale and, after a brief lull, the rain became sleet.
You pay your money and you take your chances when you come to Fish in a Barrel Pond, especially in October. Some folks, with little apparent effort, have a fine time no matter the conditions, while others don’t try at all and are miserable, rain or shine. Continue reading
Categories: +The Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society, Fly Fishing, Humor, nature
Tags: fall, fiction, fishing, Fly Fishing, ghoti62, Humor, nature, quill gordon, snow
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Match Game
Search the internet and you will find plenty of fly fishing experts, willing and able to befuddle you beyond all reason with their grasp of the sport. I am not one of them.
I do like to touch upon important aspects of fly fishing from time to time, though, as I did with “Fishing Hurts,” where I discuss the back cast, and with “Teach a Man to Fish,” where I discuss delicate presentations and sportsmanship in general. I am able to observe a lot of fishermen, both on the water and off, and over the years I have reached some very important conclusions regarding this peaceful pastime and its practitioners. One of those conclusions — painful as it is to admit — is that a six-year-old with a $20.00 Spiderman fishing pole and a tub of worms can catch more fish than a 50-year-old with a $600.00 fly fishing rig.
There, I said it. I am also nearly certain that a pink marshmallow will attract more trout than a Royal Wulff and corn will generally outperform the most intricate woven-body nymph. Continue reading
Categories: Fly Fishing, Humor, nature
Tags: fishing, Fly Fishing, ghoti62, Humor, match the hatch, nature, quill gordon
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Dead Flies
With a fairly steady stream of anglers plying the waters of Fish in a Barrel Pond I find flies everywhere. I pick them up and if they are intact I add them to my boxes. If not, I keep them anyway. Mangled and broken, tattered and frayed, shredded and unwound, dropped, stepped on and left behind, it sometimes seems that I accumulate as many un-fishable flies as good ones. I find them in boats, on the ground in the parking lot and stuck in the nap of rugs at the doors of the camps. No fly lasts forever.
Most people wouldn’t give these worthless bits of feather, hair and thread a second look but I just can’t throw them away or leave them behind, rusting away to nothing.
Categories: Fly Fishing, Humor, Rural Life
Tags: broken hooks, fishing, fishing flies, flies, Fly Fishing, ghoti62, Humor, quill gordon
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Mouse Pie
The leaves are turning, early it seems, and around here that means more people from other places will be showing up to see them. Every small town and village tries to get those people to stop, linger and spend money by hosting craft fairs, food fests, art shows, etc. and ours is no exception. My friend Eugene and his pal Purly are looking to get in on the action with a booth on the green where they can offer up real, honest to goodness Vermont food, educate folks about a different way of life and maybe make a few bucks along the way, even though their first experience with food and outsiders didn’t go very well (see “Eugene, Purly and Chef Gordon Ramsay“).
When Eugene stopped by this week, searching for ingredients, I was happy to help. Unfortunately, he and Purly originally wanted to serve up Teriyaki Beaver on a Stick but beaver season doesn’t start until November and all I had to offer was a couple of frozen hind quarters (freshness is of utmost importance). They were, however, able to come up with an authentic recipe they could use and for which I can provide ingredients in abundance. It’s a win-win, as they say. Continue reading
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Stories About My Good Friend, Eugene, Vermont
Tags: Eugene, fiction, ghoti62, Humor, mouse pie, mouse recipes, quill gordon, Rural Life, Vermont, vermont recipes
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The View from Fish in a Barrel Pond 