Faux March

Blue skies, sunshine, temperatures in the mid to upper forties, gusty wind from the South: March? No, January in Minnesota. Who'd a thunk?

Root River Rod Co., Lanesboro

Photo by J. Harrington

In celebration of today's weather, we've decided to let the world's problems tend themselves today. We're organizing fly rods, reels and lines in anticipation of real Spring. Not only have we been sorting out what's where, but we've been making progress figuring out stuff we've lost track of over the past five or six years. It turned out to be not as challenging as we feared. Isn't much of life like that?

N. Branch, Sunrise River, pretty, but not a trout stream

Photo by J. Harrington

We're even beginning to remember when sorting tackle used to be fun and not simply a chore. By the time Minnesota's new fishing season (open water, not ice) starts, we plan to be fully fly-fishing organized again, or at least as close as we ever come. Even if we rarely catch anything, exploring for places to fish usually takes us somewhere full of beauty. Hard to go wrong with those odds. If you'll pardon us now. we still have a few reels to sort and fly-lines lines to weigh.

The Bean House

John Koethe, 1945

. . . humming in the summer haze.

Diane christened it the Bean House,
Since everything in it came straight from an 
L.L. Bean Home catalog. It looks out upon two
Meadows separated by a stand of trees, and at night,
When the heat begins to dissipate and the stars
Become visible in the uncontaminated sky,
I like to sit here on the deck, listening to the music
Wafting from the inside through the sliding patio doors,
Listening to the music in my head. It’s what I do:
The days go by, the days remain the same, dwindling
Down to a precious few as I try to write my name
In the book of passing days, the book of water. Some
Days I go fishing, usually unsuccessfully, casting
Gently across a small stream that flows along beneath
Some overhanging trees or through a field of cows.
Call it late bucolic: this morning I awoke to rain
And a late spring chill, with water dripping from the
Eaves, the apple trees, the pergola down the hill.
No fishing today, as I await the summation
Of my interrupted eclogue, waiting on the rain
And rhythms of the world for the music to resume,
As indeed it does: all things end eventually,
No matter how permanent they seem, no matter how
Desperately you want them to remain. And now the sun
Comes out once more, and life becomes sweet again,
Sweet and familiar, on the verge of summer.

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