Posts Tagged With: ghoti62

What are the Odds?

 I see lots of tracks and other signs of animal activity when I am walking in the woods. Those “other signs” are usually poop, although I did see a spot today where a coyote lost its cookies and, believe me, it hadn’t been eating cookies. I came this close to taking a picture of it but didn’t. I kind of wish I had now but it’s probably better for everyone that I did not.

I did, however, take pictures of some other animal signs that I saw while walking through a stand of rather large balsam and hemlock trees.

 

These branch tips, scattered all around, are a sign that a North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus) has been feeding in the tall trees. They will eat bark if they have to, but green branches, especially on a mild winter day, make the climb up worthwhile. Table manners are not high on the list of porcupine priorities and what we see on the ground are the crumbs and leavings from one porcupine’s trip through an arboreal all-you-can-eat buffet.

Now, I have been known to do perhaps just a bit too much thinking while I walk. Once, on the Appalachian Trail in Maine, with a heavy pack* that included fuel and priming paste for my cooking stove along with a generous supply of strike-anywhere matches, I forgot all about running into bears, moose and even humans as I worried about taking a tumble down a steep rock face and hitting bottom, landing on the matches and setting off a small, backpacker-size explosion. With that in mind, you might understand my trepidation as I stood there, looking up into the trees as the afternoon wind kicked up.

 

I just can’t help but wonder if anyone has ever been hit by a falling porcupine (from 30 feet up it has to hurt, even without the quills) and just what are the odds of it happening? I imagine they would be just about the same as me exploding at the foot of a cliff in the Hundred Mile Wilderness but, even so, I didn’t stick around to find out.

*I also used to wonder how many pounds of helium I would have to carry before that pack weighed nothing.

Categories: nature | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments

Flashback Friday (a few days late), with Some Reservations

I have felt the first stirrings of spring. Winter is nowhere near being done with us yet, snatching away yesterday’s balmy warmth with yet another cold, arctic blast last night, and I am still trying to get caught up with what winter hath already wrought, but I have felt them.

I’ve heard them, too, those sweet trillings of warmer things to come, but it is much too early for peepers and wood frogs and red-winged black birds among the willows. What I have been hearing is the gosh darn phone.

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Categories: Flashback Fridays | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

On the Snowshoes (Video)

Took a break from working a shovel on the roof, strapped on the snowshoes and took a little walk. Shot some video, too. No one working for National Geographic or Discovery Channel has anything to worry about from me.

I’d turn down the volume if I were you.

Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Flashback (Flash Fire?) Friday — Camp Cooking

There was a time when the members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society did their cooking over open fires. Trout were spitted on forked branches or fried to a crisp in heavy cast iron pans and, when there were no fish (due to no fault of their own, of course), they cooked beans right in the can. Clean-up was easy; throw the pan in the fire until most of the crud had burned off, scrape it out with a stick, rub it down with a little oil and salt and put it away until next time. After a meal of beans, one simply licked off one’s spoon, wiped it on one’s trousers and threw the can into the woods. It was a smoky, dirty, manly way of doing things.

 

Times change, though, and so did conditions here at Fish in a Barrel Pond. Sleeping under the stars or in leaky canvas tents began to lose their allure and permanent camps were erected — wooden cabins, each holding six bunks and a wood stove but not much more. Each cabin had an attached lean-to which served as at least a dry place to stand and chop onions while smoky fires sulked in the rain, but some members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society became too sophisticated for even these luxuries. A group of them began lobbying for actual indoor kitchens to be built, with wood stoves for cooking and sinks with running water, but other members urged caution in the face of these modern encroachments.

“What’s next, toilets?” they asked, “Why, before long we’ll have showers! Women and children are sure to follow!” Continue reading

Categories: Flashback Fridays | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Walk in the Woods

There are times when any opening in the trees seems as good as another but things are not always as they seem. There is a trail around Fish in a Barrel Pond and, no matter how many times I tromp it down, regular snow-fall fills it back in. If it was only me using the trail, I wouldn’t worry about keeping it open, but it is not so I do. Some members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society like to get out once in a while, and when two of them came up last week I told them I hadn’t been out since the last big snow but they said it wasn’t a problem; they knew the way and they would be happy to break the trail for me. Continue reading

Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter | Tags: , , , , , , | 4 Comments

1947 LLBean Bamboo Rod – $15.00

Priced a decent bamboo rod lately? Old or new, it’s enough to put some people on the verge of apoplexy. Gardeners dream of warmer weather while browsing seed catalogs; some of us dream while browsing other stuff. As you plan your fly fishing purchases for 2011, think of this: Continue reading

Categories: Flashback Fridays | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

Testament of a Fisherman, Deconstructed

John Voelker (pen name Robert Traver) wrote his “Testament of a Fisherman” in 1964. The world has changed quite a bit in 47 years and so have anglers (a more up to date, gender-neutral term). I am not yet an old codger, pining away for the good old days (more like a middle-aged long-hair with an appreciation for fine fire-water and bamboo rods), but I think it would be interesting to take Traver’s words from nearly a half-century ago and see how they stand up to the world we live in today.

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Categories: Fly Fishing, nature | Tags: , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Only 18 Below

Not whining. Not bragging. It is what it is. 

Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

Unwanted Canadian Export

As the sun comes up this morning, the sky is as clear as clear can be. Not a cloud to be seen, unless you count the vapor of my breath — but it freezes quickly and falls to the ground as icy dust. Even the red stuff in my thermometer is seeking refuge, as the molecules of whatever-it-is drop toward the bulb at the bottom of the glass, huddling together in a shivering blob. Only the best thermometers will be giving any indications of temperature tonight. Some lucky people in these parts might even get to see that magic point where Farenheit and Celsius actually agree (in case you don’t own a really good thermometer, that would be 40 below zero).

I doubt cold air is covered in any trade agreement with our neighbors to the north (if it is, I demand to know what we are sending in exchange). I can’t think of any benefit to this mass of arctic air, this mind-jangling intrusion into a normally peaceful time of year. Unless, of course, its purpose is an increased appreciation of mud season and the blackflies of spring, but that’s kind of like hitting my thumb with a hammer because it will feel so much better when it stops hurting.

 I would like to reject this unwanted Canadian export outright — treat it like junk-mail and stuff the whole shebang into the postage-paid envelope and send it back. Let them deal with it. I don’t want it, don’t need it.

I read somewhere that there are something like 30,000,000 people within a day’s drive from here (half of New Jersey is already here, skiing and driving into ditches). That is a lot of people and if everyone would please take a few minutes this afternoon, let’s say just before kick-off, go outside, face north and blow just as hard as they can, it would be big help, I’m sure.

If that doesn’t work, I hate to say it but this may require Congressional action. E-mail your representatives immediately and demand they do something! Like swinging the doors of the Capitol Building wide open Monday morning so we can put all that hot air to good use.

Categories: Winter | Tags: , , , , | 6 Comments

Return of the Shack Nasties

Coming down with a case of the Shack Nasties is a gradual thing. Fortitude and stoicism delay the inevitable, slowing its progress for a time, but sooner or later the Shack Nasties set in. I’ve had them before, I have them now, and I will have them again but these, too, shall pass.

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Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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