May 10, 2013
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Fur and Feathers

Over the past couple years I haven’t done nearly as much fly fishing as I used to, and this year I missed the opener as we were away at Merlefest. I’ve finally got around to going through my gear, making sure everything was in order. I sifted through my boxes of flies, doing a little sorting and organizing. I think I need to tie a dozen or so Usuals but aside from that I think I have the major hatches covered. I’ve been fishing for trout since I was a little kid. I can hardly recall a time when I didn’t. Much later I took up fly fishing exclusively and began releasing just about all my trout. That interest took me to many places, including Pennsylvania, NY, BC, Alberta, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Yellowstone. I learned along the way that while trying to catch trout was the aim, there was a lot more to the activity. Standing in a trout stream, observing nature, slowing down, getting into it like a meditation, watching for rises and swirls, identifying mayflies, caddisflies, stone flies and terrestrials, figuring it all out, the whole package was really interesting to me.

A box of small flies

A box of small flies

Since we got the dogs, I’ve been doing a lot of mushroom foraging instead of fly fishing because taking two Newfs to a trout stream only means they swim in the best pools. I really enjoy wandering about forests with the dogs, and they clearly love it too. They get very excited about a trip to a forest. And mushroom hunting has some things in common with fly fishing. There is identification of fungi instead of bugs, and there is the search for the elusive treasure, and of course there is the opportunity to enjoy nature. Lately I’ve been itching to get back on a stream.

I’ve promised a lad who lives down the street I would teach him fly fishing. We’ll be practicing some casting out on the street or over in the park this weekend and once he learns how to more or less handle a fly rod (I’m still learning and I’ve been doing it for many years), I’ll take him out to try his luck on a nice stream. If he really gets into it, I might even teach him how to tie his own flies.

Next week I have a couple days off work scheduled and I’m going to make one of those days a stream day. I haven’t decided where to go yet. Maybe one of the usual places around here. Or maybe I’ll go to another little stream I know, a little further away, that doesn’t get much play. It’s small but it holds surprisingly big trout.

I’ve already mentioned here that in June I’m going to go on a fly fishing and camping road trip. I can’t get it out of my mind, thinking about the last time I was up that way.

May 8, 2013
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I’ve had a complaint…

Apparently, the planned obsolescence model practiced by the IT world has not reached all parts of the fair province of Ontario, and a reader with either a painfully slow computer or a painfully slow connection or maybe even both has complained it took him 8 minutes to pull up this blog. That will never do. So….cut back on the number of posts showing at a given time from 20 to 10. Hopefully that will help.

UPDATE: Apparently this blog is still loading slowly with the changes I made on a computer with a slow connection so I’ve tried a different theme to see if it makes any difference.

May 8, 2013
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She likes kielbasa better than fish…

Somebody entered “she likes kielbassa better than fish” into a search engine and came up with this blog. You asked for it buddy, you got it. It’s polka time on 27th St.

Here are Buffalo’s own Scrubby and Trojak

But while we’re on a Polish foodfest post, let’s not stop there. Here are Stanky and his Pennsylvania Coal Miners Polka Band performing Who Likes Pierogi

How about the Original Ampol Aires performing Polska Kielbasa. I love the dancing in this video…

OK OK, here’s Papa Crow performing Walt Solek’s masterpiece, Who Stole the Kishka

And finally, an old Czech commercial celebrating the virtues of kapusta.

May 8, 2013
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Trout Magic

Regular readers will recall that I recently re-read Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver. Since doing so, and also because I’m planning a little trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in June, I decided to re-read his trout fishing books as well, Trout Madness and Trout Magic. Trout Madness was the first, published in 1960, the year I was born. Trout Magic was published in 1974. I started with the more recent of the two. For the fly fisherpeople in the crowd, these books are simply perfect. If you aren’t a flyfisherperson, I’d prefer that you didn’t read these books, because if you did you might find yourselves compelled to start fly fishing. We already have plenty enough people out there on stream today, thanks just the same.

Trout Magic begins with Travers’ Testament of a Fisherman. Here’s a snippet:

“I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience…..”

There is a third Robert Traver fishing book, called Anatomy of a Fisherman. I have Salvelinas Fontinalis’ copy (he’s not likely to get it back – har!). It’s a book dominated by the photographs of Life Magazine photographer Robert Kelley, taken at some of Travers’ secret trout spots on the UP. I think I’m going to have to dig that one out and enjoy it all over again.

May 6, 2013
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Working on a new mountain banjo

neck for new mountain banjo: in progress

neck for new mountain banjo: in progress

This design is much different than that of the oil cans. With the oil can banjos, as with gourd banjos, the neck has a dowel stick, typically one piece that goes through the pot. The mountain banjo has a pot made from three rings of wood with a skin head inside. The neck is attached to the pot with screws. The idea is that the entire construction will come apart should it ever be necessary to replace the skin down the road.  This is also a longer banjo than the oil can instruments I’ve made. Those are short-scale or “A”-scale instruments. The new mountain banjo will be long-scale, similar to a standard factory-made banjo.

May 5, 2013
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The Imagination Stations

The summer before last, I created a lean-to out in the back yard, and then last year I made a second one.  Maintaining the back garden, with all the mature trees and the shrubs in the back, generates plenty of sticks of various sizes and I like the idea of using them to make something fun in the yard rather that bundling them up and making them disappear. Last year, Tuffy P started calling them the Imagination Stations. I like that! Already this spring, I’ve been adding to both of them. Today, I added a chair to the first one, the one by the shovel garden, and I put a frog on the chair. Tuffy P leaned a small floral mosaic nearby. Maybe this year, I’ll built a third large garden object of some kind.

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imagination station #2, with Jacques

imagination station #2, with Jacques

May 5, 2013
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Spring garden clean-up

Tuffy P has been working on cleaning up the front gardens as the season’s new growth begins.

spring gardens

spring gardens

In a few weeks, this photo will look very bare, but for now the garden looks fresh and clean and full of new growth. Tuffy has planted a few annuals, around the locust and in the canoe particularly, to add some early spring colour. This time of year, the bird mosaics really stand out. Custom birds or other mosaics are available, by the way. Anyone interested can email me. Prices depend on the complexity and size of the piece.

May 5, 2013
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Fiddleheads

What a perfect day for a walk in the woods. My friend Tiffanie had mentioned quite a while ago that she’d like to pick fiddleheads. Since I know where to find some and since ’tis the season, I suggested we go pick a good bag full. Naturally, we brought along Memphis and Ellie Mae.

Fiddleheads

Fiddleheads

Memphis enjoys the woods

Memphis enjoys the woods

Tiffanie picks fiddleheads with Ellie Mae looking on

Tiffanie picks fiddleheads with Ellie Mae looking on

There were plenty of fiddleheads in the forest, many that were just right, some that were quickly maturing into ferns and quite a few just emerging. We picked a big bag but were careful to leave lots of this bounty for others and for future years. Fiddleheads are easy to identify. They have a “U” shaped stalk, the characteristic shape, and as well, there is a brown paper-like substance that comes off the young plants as they grow.