Will the real reality please...?

Today we had what we think was a purple finch at the niger thistle feeder. It was surrounded by goldfinches. We only noticed one, and it was at a bad angle to be certain of the coloring, but we noticed several areas of more solid reddish color than we expect to see on a house finch. On the other hand, it looked smaller than the purple finches we've seen in the past. We'll never be sure which we saw this morning, but we're pleased someone different arrived and we'll keep looking to get a better view.

purple finches?, house finches?, ???

Photo by J. Harrington

In addition to having a difficult time identifying the reddish/purplish/pinkish/brownish bird at the feeder, we've exhibited another all too human characteristic today. We didn't (still don't) want to believe our eyes when what we see doesn't meet our expectations. Here's our story: We were once again this morning weighing fly lines. One line that was on a spare spool for the reel on our workhorse fly rod weighed 16 grams. That would put it solidly in the 9 weight category. We don't believe we would ever overload a 6 weight rod with a 9 weight line, so, of course, we doubted the accuracy of the scale or the length of fly line we measured, or both. We did it all over again. The line weighs 16 grams. If the scale is off, so are all the other fly lines we've been weighing. We did notice we seem to have an extra 7 weigh line sitting around. That would fit with our tendency to overload a rod by one line weight. But we have no idea how a 9 weight line ended up on a 6 weight rod. No doubt, when this is all said and done, we'll still end up testing several rods with different lines to see which combinations seem to cast best. That's what it's all about, after all.

The Better Half puts up with all of this nonsense because, in part, we've been doing something similar with our sourdough bread recipes. We recently ended up with a combination, modified from the original King Arthur flour recipe, that we were told to "leave alone and don't break it." High praise from those quarters. The variations are two-fold. First, we combine the water, yeast and sugar and let that combination sit for 20 or 30 minutes, until the yeast looks all happy and foamy/bubbly. Then we add the sourdough starter and the flour. We used to add everything at once without letting the yeast start to develop. The second variation is we used two cups of bread flour and three cups of all purpose flour instead of five cups of all purpose flour. The rest of the recipe is basically the same as found on the King Arthur site (except the recipe they sent with our sourdough starter also lists a tablespoon of sugar).

Between the differences in birds, and the recipes and the strange fly-line weight, we're starting to get a little nervous. Is it time to study up on gaslighting, or simply accept how rarely the world is as we expect it to be? Next thing we know, we'll have a hard time telling crows from ravens.

Why I Am Not a Buddhist

Charles Bernstein, 1950

Reality cons me as it spur(n)s me.
This is the road to eternal
Consanguinity, eloping with
Hope and leaving me to pick
Up the proverbial bag.
But that’s the argument for.

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