Posts Tagged With: outdoors

Flashback Friday: Shooting in the Streets Edition

Like so many winter days gone by, last Friday was spent on a tractor, re-arranging piles of snowflakes, as was a good part of Saturday. That’s the excuse we’re using for the failure to post Flashback Friday: Valentine’s Edition, but just between us, there never was such a post to begin with. Stay tuned for upcoming words about winter (spoiler alert: we’re a little tired of it) but, in the meantime, here’s a little something about a time when heavily- armed men roamed the streets of Indianapolis and the sounds of shotguns meant things were looking up.

Two men (behind hydrant and partially obscured behind lamp post) discharging shotguns in downtown Indianapolis.

Two men (behind hydrant and partially obscured behind lamp post) discharging shotguns in downtown Indianapolis.

According to a story by Clare Conley in the December, 1963, issue of Field & Stream magazine, the gunmen in the photo are actually civic-minded folks, members of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, stepping in to save their town from an infestation even worse than zombies.

Shooters Solve the Pigeon Problem!

Shooters Solve the Pigeon Problem!

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Categories: Flashback Fridays, Humor, nature | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Found Photos: Mid-20th Century Vermont Beaver Camp

There are no dates on these photos I found but I am guessing they were taken in the late 1940s or early 1950s. They record a group of men who traveled on snowshoes for a couple days of beaver trapping. Blurry and badly exposed, these photos were probably a big deal to these guys. Back then, the cost of a roll of film, plus processing, confined picture taking to special occasions and events. When the pictures finally got back from being developed these men probably got together again to look at them over coffee and cigarettes after dinner, before spending the rest of the evening playing cribbage and telling stories.

I don’t know how these pictures ended up where I found them, and I don’t know where they’d have gone if I hadn’t, but I wanted to preserve these old records of our outdoor heritage. Wanting to share them is the reason for this post.

In case someone missed it the first time, these pictures are of beaver trappers. They had a successful couple of days, hung their catch from poles and posed for pictures in camp. There’s nothing here to disturb the squeamish, but it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Heading out on Snowshoes

Heading out on Snowshoes

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Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Flashback Friday: Food for Thought

Dining Out

Dining Out, 1950s Style

It used to be that a fire, a rock, and maybe a screwdriver, were all the implements an outdoorsy person needed to prepare dinner or a tasty snack. Some minimalists didn’t even bring a screwdriver, using old nails or even more rocks to open containers. Today’s outdoors folk, however, are a different breed with different needs. Some require ovens, pans, zesters, and appropriate stemware. Some prefer their meat refrigerated and their melons balled, and more than a few of them would never dream of sitting outdoors, in the dirt and among the bugs to consume their culinary creations.

These days at Fish in a Barrel Pond, we provide manual can openers and corkscrews and even electric mixers (good luck finding the beaters), but some showoffs well-outfitted anglers arrive with their own spiral slicers, immersion blenders, infusers and ramekins. A few have even learned to bring their own stemware, but that is not to say things were especially primitive back in the old days, as shown by this ad that appeared in the March, 1964, issue of Outdoor Life magazine:

Martini Tester

Martini Tester

Extra dry or regular, the perfect martini was sure to be the perfect complement for everyone’s favorite snack, advertised in bulk, in the pages of Field & Stream, June, 1963:

A Big Panful of Jerky

A Big Panful of Jerky

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Categories: Flashback Fridays, Humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

The Cremation of MMXIII

(To the delight of some and the consternation of others, this is not Part II of our tribute to Forgotten Fly Fishing Legend Little Dickie Conroy. That particular dispatch will appear shortly, just as soon as our top-notch research staff has finished making stuff up reviewing source materials.)

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A symbolic bonfire is an appropriate and sometimes exciting way to bid farewell and good riddance to the old year. It can also extend a warm welcome to the new year and serve to celebrate the gradual lengthening of days in the midst of a long winter slog. A spontaneous attempt was made to light such a fire three weeks ago, using a very large pile of brush, which was crusted with ice and covered in snow. Despite the use of various accelerants, the effort had to be abandoned and, while someone might have had a good chuckle at the time, someone else came out of the deal with nothing more to show than some ironic burn-holes in his raincoat and a hat that smelled like diesel fuel.

Symbolic, perhaps, but not what we would consider appropriate.

Several attempts since have yielded similar results but we’re sure to get a good one going sooner or later to serve as the symbolic cremation of MMXIII. In the meantime, here is a photo of a fire from a previous post, “The Cremation of MMX” (rest assured that the surprised-looking man in the foreground had no hair to begin with and was just fine):

Quill Gordon Shows How It's Done

Quill Gordon Shows How It’s Done

For the purposes of this post, the fire will be metaphorical, and the brush to be burned is a few things found laying around in the form of notes and half-started nonsense. This should lessen the chances of someone flapping and running, chased by a ribbon of flame, while everyone else hollers, “Drop the can! Continue reading

Categories: Humor, Winter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Someplace Cool and Green and Shady

In High Summer, when the temperature climbs and southerly breezes blow sultry and moist, one can easily slip into delirium, taking solace in the fact that there will be a day six months from now exactly the opposite of today. Next winter’s white freshness and quietude are romantic visions in this time of muggy oppression, but one regains one’s perspective when one remembers a day six months past.

Capture

That day was booger-freezing cold and there is no need for that just yet (as if there ever really is). Remembering it pisses me off for some reason and has me wondering where I stashed the snow shovels so, as cooling-off methods go, perhaps memories of frostbite are not the best.

Some search for relief at beaches and swimming holes while others drive around in air-conditioned cars and marvel at the crowds. Some head for the nearest creemee stand, while others go for a cup of the hard stuff. I, however, have never been one for crowds and I am not particularly fond of standing around, dripping sweetened butterfat and attracting wasps. Staying close to home, I have found other ways to bear the unbearably muggy dog days of summer, but have no fear, Dear Reader, this post does not involve sitting in front of a fan with a big bowl of ice cubes perched upon my bare belly.

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

Stubbornly Waiting for Drakes

A photo of a dirty bathroom floor sucked most of the funny from a recent post. The resulting flapdoodle and folderol was probably to be expected but it is interesting to note that the indignation expressed at the condition of said floor was nearly matched by the indignation expressed at its having been pointed out. But here’s the thing: This blog is dedicated to everyone who gives in to the urge to get away from it all, but it is especially dedicated to the brave souls who take care of them when they arrive and, as anyone who has had a job that included cleaning restrooms can tell you, from posh resorts to the most modest of camps, floor-dribblers aren’t the half of it.

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Categories: Fly Fishing, Humor, Loons | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Tapping Out

(A new tab at the top of this page (or this link) will take you to a collection of photos and links following the production of maple syrup this spring from the sugar bush of some friends. Their new enterprise is called Bobo’s Mountain Sugar, and the taps are in on Bobo’s Mountain — all 2500 of them.)

In mixed martial arts, tapping out is an act of submission, the end of a fight, and often the result of a violent twisting of arms. In maple syrup production, tapping out is a declaration of victory, the end of a job that no one’s arm had to be twisted to do.

big old tree

The snow was deep when I started helping on the hill above the sugar house, but I waded and floundered and stomped my way along the lines, tapping trees for a few hours each afternoon, doing what I could. The steepness of the hill, combined with thickets of beech and short balsams, had me convinced I made the right call in leaving my snowshoes at home, even as more flakes fell every day. After struggling in the wake of an additional 14+” from one storm, I finally gave in and strapped them on the next day.

If, as they say, snowshoes make the impossible difficult, it was a very hard afternoon. Without my snowshoes I had sunk to my knees; with them I still sank to my knees and had to high-step to clear the holes I’d made, with the decks weighted down with snow. Lifting a leg, expecting 25 pounds of resistance but getting none because the snow slid off, resulted in a few sharp blows to my chin and twice I kneed myself in the ear when my right foot sank deeper as I lifted my left. Continue reading

Categories: +Uncategorized, Maple Syrup, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

The Power of Calm

The calm days stand out around here, if for no other reason than the profound silence that descends. Straining to hear the pulse of the water, like listening for a heartbeat late at night, not even a gentle ripple laps the shore.

Shadows creep northward and the lowering sun angles through the first icy haze of the season, creating sun dogs, which are kind of like rainbows but much, much colder.

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Categories: nature, Vermont | Tags: , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

A Big Old Dose of Spring

At Town Meeting, back on the 6th, I was told Mud Season would begin on the 7th.

It did.

A protracted spell of unseasonable warmth made it even deeper and more tenacious than usual and, two and a half weeks later, it’s still not over. Entire dump truck loads of stone continue to disappear in the slop.

While several feet of saturated road bed thawed in the warm spring sun this week, the ice on the lake remained thick, but not to be trusted.

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Categories: Humor, nature, Vermont | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

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