It is hard to believe that there once was a time when we had to be reminded to use our phones. Of course, our telephones weighed 7 1/2 pounds in those days, were anchored to the wall and belonged to the one and only phone company in existence (“We don’t care. We don’t have to.”)
I recently wrote about meeting an important man and, in the comments that followed, I was reminded of my encounter with a man last summer that resulted in me yelling at the man so loudly and often that his child started to cry. Other than the trauma suffered by a small child, it’s a funny story — at least the way I tell it — but I have often wondered how the man I yelled at would tell it.
Maybe he would send me an email and I would provide a snip of it to convince you of its authenticity, posting the complete text (and photos) below.
Weasels seem to have become a theme this week, so we’re sticking to it. First, a mink — nothing but a weasel with a fancy fur coat but a weasel none the less — managed to kill six of my chickens before succumbing to a case of high-velocity lead poisoning. Then, I managed to irk a very important man to the point he hopped and sputtered, just like a weasel, but he only got a ticket, and then I came across the “This Happened to Me” feature in the July, 1956 issue of Outdoor Life Magazine.
A pheasant hunter in Alberta came across a weasel, which climbed a fence post and leaped for the man’s throat!
Winter is dead. Oh, sure, there will be a few snow squalls and maybe even a storm in the next three or four weeks but a few sickly patches of rotten snow are all that remain of the 10+ feet that fell over the course of the past seven months (some of those patches are still three feet thick). The edges are pulling back and the coltsfoot have begun to bloom in the bare spots along the roads.
Coltsfoot sends up leafless flower stalks as soon as the snow retreats. Early bees and other insects find coltsfoot a welcome source of nectar and within a few days the coltsfoot will be thoroughly pollenated and their bright yellow blooms will go to seed, looking like tiny dandelion heads. By June the leaves will be up, some a foot across, gathering energy for next April’s blooms. They may not be much to look at but the blooming of the coltsfoot is one of the surest signs of spring in these parts.
The members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society are a curious bunch and I get at least one phone call a day from this member or that, asking me when the ice will go out. I’ve watched a lot of ice in my time and I do my best to give them the benefit of my vast experience, telling them that if I could predict that sort of thing I sure as heck wouldn’t be doing what I do, which lately has involved a lot of counting Band-Aids™ and rolls of paper towels.
The edges of Fish in a Barrel Pond have begun to melt and holes are opening up. Only three or four inches of lake ice remain, beneath what is left of this winter’s snow, and it is going fast. It better go fast; I’ve got 20 people showing up in two weeks and they are going to be eager to fish.
Fish in a Barrel Pond April 14, 2011
If you are anything at all like me, when the forecast calls for high temperatures in the 70s, you jump on the tractor and go dig snow.
You know, just to help things along a little bit. We’re going to be fishing again in 18 days.
(This post probably deserves a PG rating, at least. It contains photos of dead chickens and a dead weasel. Read no further if that sort of thing bothers you.)
It is a given, living in the sticks and keeping chickens, that a bird will be lost from time to time. I once lost four chickens to a marauding horde of raccoons who tore apart heavy-guage wire mesh panels to get them and I know that a determined predator — especially one with a family to feed — can get into just about any enclosure.
Sometimes we let the chickens out of their pen to forage in the yard and have only been able to shrug when a fox darted out of the woods, grabbed one of our birds, and ran away with it to feed its young. I get that. I can understand it. It happens. At least the fox was killing for a reason.
Dogs, whose owners are sure would never do such a thing, lose their heads around chickens, sheep, cows and deer, killing indiscriminately, for no reason at all, and they have taken a toll on my birds, but this post isn’t about my feelings regarding humans who let their dogs run loose.
Dogs, foxes, bobcats, coyotes, bears, owls and hawks are ever present and we do what we can to keep them away from our birds without breaking the bank. We have a sturdy, six-foot tall fence with the top three feet of wire mesh hung loosely to discourage climbing. Netting and small shelters provide protection against aerial attacks, the doors and windows on the coop are secure and the vents are covered with 1/2-inch mesh. So far, that has proven to be sufficient.
Until this morning. Continue reading
I have heard it said that golf was invented to keep a certain type of person off the water. I have heard it the other way around, too, with fly fishing keeping a certain type of person off the links.
These two are evidently kept off both water and links by their fellow outdoorsmen. I don’t even know them and find them a bit irksome for some reason.
Of course, it could be that they are the kind of guy who, even though he is not actually fishing or golfing right this minute, likes to look as if he could, at any minute, if he really wanted to. (Not that I would know anyone like that.)
Then again, maybe they just live in this part of Vermont where, even though trout season opens on State waters tomorrow, there ain’t much for a guy to do except stand around, fondling his rod.
Fish in a Barrel Pond April 7, 2011
It is hard to think about fishing right now, when this is the best spring has come up with so far:
On the other hand, it is hard not to, with Opening Day here at Fish in a Barrel Pond a mere three and a half weeks away. I don’t know how you prepare for Opening Day in your neck of the woods, but I’m willing to bet I prepare a little differently than you do.
Today, for example, I counted spatulas and ordered 90 rolls of toilet paper.
It’s almost time to start digging out the roads, just as I do every year but, when it comes to the ice on the lake, there’s not much I can do but have faith it will go away on its own, just as it does every year, sometimes with only hours to spare.
Oh, look! A crack!
In the weeks to come, readers of this blog can look forward to more exciting preparation rituals like distributing itchy wool blankets, hitting up the linen service for cold sheets and starchy pillow cases, along with the unveiling of the new brooms (complete with instructions!). Water will flow through pipes and down drains, septic system pumps will be tested (graphic photos!), worn gasketing on wood stoves will be replaced, chimneys will be cleaned and critters will be rousted from their winter homes. There will be setbacks and surprises along the way, I’m sure (there always are) but, come the last Saturday in April, the ice will be off and fish will be on as the members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society hit the water for the start of the 2011 season at Fish in a Barrel Pond.
Some anglers count themselves fortunate to have one Opening Day excursion to prepare for; Quill Gordon gets to prepare for dozens at once.
Great Moments in Literary History #24: On this date in 1951, Ernest Hemingway caught a small trout and decided to not write about it.
(That, of course, is a marlin)
For being the season of hope and renewal, spring can be surprisingly grim.
Grim enough, even, to cause a severe flare-up of a latent case of the shack nasties, treatable only by a quick trip south. Less than a couple of hours from the dirty, glacier-like crust back home, Mrs. Gordon and I were both pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in tropical warmth, surrounded by thousands of colorful butterflies at Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory and Gardens in South Deerfield, Massachusetts.
Knock it off. If a butterfly doesn’t make you smile, there is something seriously disconnected and wrong with you. Continue reading
The View from Fish in a Barrel Pond 