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Friday, August 17, 2012

Fauna in the Compost Bucket

I know I find entertainment in some very strange places but keeping it simple is a cheep way to be rich. So as each day passes, we are confronted with all sorts of possibilities in our immediate surroundings that have to be noticed---at least that is what I think, particularly if we can not afford to go to the movies.

Some days it might be the juvenile Bald Eagle feasting on a gruesomely flattened road killed cat right next to the road. Not a good avian idea but still the bird is young, an opportunist and maybe not a survivor if he keeps that up. Still, it it an opportunity to see a massive bird right there up close and personal. The power of his lifting wings is enough to move the car. It is that little glimpse.

I have also enjoyed having a skunk approach my ground dwelling deer stand while he did his daily activity of scrounging for fat grubs and fall berries. It is a chance to watch, to see really how his days must go. This is entertainment even if a giant buck walks past unnoticed. If he should choose to enter my abode it is more than casual entertainment, or education. It is a embarrassing comedy--hasn't happened yet but very close.

There are garden things also that on first observation may cause concern like the beans that are supposed to be bush beans but for reasons unknown  take off in early spring and wonder about the garden in great tentacles not intent on bean production. It is a cause to pause, maybe mutter some colorful profanity, maybe contemplate the meaning of life or wonder what I screwed up to cause this----or what we all screwed up.

Today we found this growing in the "gut bucket" as we call it, the bucket used to hold all chicken food scrapes or compost. We just dump it to make soil or entertain the chickens with twenty minutes of scratching to find one desirable morsel. It is a fungus I suspect, the mycelium of fungal organism that has found a comfortable home. Like a cotton ball it is growing on scraps, growing , I suspect quickly, because yesterday it was not there. It is an opportunist like the eagle looking for scraps. What a great form of momentary entertainment---not a middle class thing I suspect but still I found it most interesting.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Wolf River and the African Queen

One thing about summer is that it flies. There is so much to write about but so little time to actually sit down and prattle away. When one is living the dream, a hunger just can't do it all. It used to be there were bad days in the summer, days when it rained or days overcast and gloomy, days when it was just not comfortable to be outside, days to sit comfortable in the warm sofa and write.

Now it seems every day has something to offer, weeding in the garden, a biking like a wild man through the rolling countryside, tinkering motors of antiquity and fiddling wild Irish tunes as a way of rattling ones brain. It may be that as we get older it seems more important to get after it, to grab every opportunity, but sitting quietly is fine, I am just not good at it. I don't knit, I do read, but mostly I like to do things and that does include fishing.

In the last few years fishing has become more of an wild-ass adventure, not just an evening outing on Lime Lake (which I do). Often there is a journey involved not unlike the African Queen and the crawling leeches, the blistering heat, but usually not the glowing young woman over heated from toil and lust. We still do dream but Ann all to often is disgusted with the hardship and blatant profanity that is necessary for fisherman of our stature. We are in our minds the most interesting people in the world, battered, crippled and often drooling in our own incompetence

 Recently Dennis, Jeff, Ann  and I decided to hit the little Wolf where we had caught nice Small Mouth Bass on a number of occasions while leisurely drifting through quiet waters.

But right out of the gate, things went wrong, not unusual in our world, and we found the river had been the unintended victim of high winds. There were trees down all over the once open river, and they crossed over the entire span. To top it off, the fish apparently didn't like the situation even though we tried to see the carnage as offering structure. They were very unkind to us.


Our casts were unanswered except for Jeff's nice 8 pound Northern. We stopped at one dead fall and headed around over a sand bar only to be massacred by blood lusting mosquitoes and then unceremoniously nipped by nettles. It was a sad sight. Old people struggling on what became known as a Baton Death Paddle. Fortunately, no one fell face in or ass in as has happened before much to our camera's demise.

To top it off, we had forgotten how far the paddle was and the dark had ventured in by the time we hit a landing, death was our motivator, and hunger pushed our ribs through our tattered clothing as we dreamed of cold beer. I was reminded it is the bad times you remember, for from them come the stories.