Fritillarying the summer away

It’s finally stopped raining long enough for me to do a second grass cutting of the season in the back yard. I was also going to mow our ditch where the dogs do most of their business but an orange butterfly, with spots, a fritillary I think, landed on some of the yellow wildflower/weed blossoms that would have been mown into oblivion. That deterred me from ditch mowing today.

Earlier, the Better Half and I headed off to the farm to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share. The share box contained:

• GREEN CABBAGE
• EITHER CARROTS OR GOLDEN NUGGET CHERRY TOMATOES (I think we got carrots)
• SNAP PEAS
• KALE
• BEETS WITH TOPS
• SCAPES
• BABY ONIONS
• SLICER CUCUMBER, and
• CILANTRO

During the drive we got a look at a couple of whitetail does and a few small flocks of wild turkeys. All in all a pleasant way to start a weekend.

box of fishing flies, mostly parachute Adams

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we threatened, or promised, depending on your viewpoint, to spend more time engaged with fly-fishing. Last night, while (re)reading Peter Kaminsky’s Fly Fisherman’s Guide to the Meaning of Life, we reached the chapter on A Fly Fisher’s Essential Reading. I thought you might enjoy seeing what and who's listed:

• In Our Time, Earnest Hemingway
• Trout Madness, Robert Traver
• A River Runs through It, Norman Maclean
• Tarpon Quest, John Cole
• Fy Fishing through the Midlife Crisis, Howell Raines
• Superior Fishing, Robert B. Roosevelt
• Spring Creek, Nick Lyons
• Hatches, Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi
• The Fly and the Fish, John Atherton
• Fishing wth McClane, A. J. McClane

I was pleased to note that I’ve read about half of the titles listed and other works of several of the authors listed. Once I’ve confirmed whether or not a couple of titles are lurking somewhere on our book shelves, we may add one or two of these to an upcoming Christmas list. 

Speckled Trout

By Ron Rash

Water-flesh gleamed like mica:

orange fins, red flankspots, a char

shy as ginseng, found only

in spring-flow gaps, the thin clear

of faraway creeks no map

could name. My cousin showed me

those hidden places. I loved

how we found them, the way we

followed no trail, just stream-sound

tangled in rhododendron,

to where slow water opened

a hole to slip a line in,

and lift as from a well bright

shadows of another world,

held in my hand, their color

already starting to fade.

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It’s about de clutter

I’m not happy with the presumed choices in presidential candidates this election, but the odds are strongly against my vote going anywhere except the Blue column. Do I care enough to vote in the local (state) primary? We’ll see. At the moment I’m not aware of any contests that affect my legislative, congressional, or statewide races. My thinking is that the Democrats have made such a mess of things that I’ll give them a vote but no more dollars. In fact, I’m contemplating going beyond that reduction.

Some years ago, a writer named Seth Godin claimed we now live in an “attention economy.” Several out-of-state Democrats have been spamming my email box with requests for donations. I keep reporting them as spam but the messages continue to arrive, doing no more than pi** me off at the sender candidate, the Democratic Party, and all politicians in general. I am officially, as of today, withdrawing my attention from the political economy until about November 5th or whenever I get around to early voting.

picture me wading here

Photo by J. Harrington

No matter what I do, the political system is unlikely to reform itself. It is, therefore, my responsibility to prevent it from doing unnecessary damage to my mental, emotional, and physical well-being. I intend to take the time I’ve been spending looking at news and doom-scrolling social media doing things that are of more immediate relevance to my life and much more capable of bringing joy into my existence. Mostly, that’s going to involve participating in, reading about, and enjoying fly-fishing, environmental healing, and similar themes.

A former Speaker of the House, from my home state of Massachusetts, Tip O’Neil once noted that “All politics is local.” I’ve been active in local issues and opportunities, it’s time to become more so. My life needs decluttering and this feels like the best time and theme on which to start. The political world, especially, is full of more bitching and moaning than I can (under)stand.

The Stolen Child

W. B. Yeats
1865 – 1939

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

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Nature always bats last!

In our neighborhood, today marks the start of a January thaw. The temperature has climbed above 32℉. It did that yesterday in The Cities (Minneapolis / St. Paul) due, I believe, to their urban heat island. What little snow was left on the deck is almost gone. Sometime in the next few days we’ll take a crack at starting the tractor and seeing if the back blade can be lifted from the frozen ground. I forgot to put a block under the blade when last I parked the tractor and having it available to plow snow increases the likelihood we won’t get much.

The persistent cloud cover may obscure Thursday’s full moon, called the Great Spirit Moon by the Ojibwe and the Hard Times Moon by the Lakota. There was a break in the clouds last night and an almost full moon brightly lit the snow covered back yard. Remember, from that famous visit, “the moon on the crest of the new fallen snow, gave a luster of midday... ?” Come February 4, we’ll have reached the midpoint of winter and from there, technically, will be on our way out. Meteorologically, that may or may not be the case. We’ll see.

Christmas 2023 -- rain

Photo by J. Harrington

To remind you of what a strange winter it’s been around here, the picture above was taken on Christmas. Yes, those are raindrops on the trees, -- in Minnesota, -- at Christmas!! Meanwhile, world governments continue to putz around instead of taking a coordinated, cooperative approach to minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the climate changes we’ll be faced with for the next century or more.

If we don’t get a lot of snow, or rain, over the next several weeks, spring flows in local trout streams will probably be less than normal due to lack of snowmelt runoff. I don’t want to speculate about the rest of the  fishing season, since I’m trying to become more optimistic. Voting for Republicans who will focus on denying the existence or the seriousness of climate breakdown should only be done by those who have no descendants, don’t expect to have any, and don’t give a damn about the rest of US.

Let Them Not Say

Jane Hirshfield
1953 – 

Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.

Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.

Let them not say:     they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.

Let them not say:   it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.

Let them not say:     they did nothing.
We did not-enough.

Let them say, as they must say something: 

A kerosene beauty.
It burned.

Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.

—2014

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resources for hope and happiness

 This morning I tumbled into a wonderful resource that I want to share. The essay, Doorways to Our Childhood Selves, introduced me to the global oneness project: Stories and lessons for growing minds which, in turn, brought me to the short film Water Flows Together. The  fact that a web site like this one exists gives me more hope for the future than most anything I’ve seen in months. I suspect there may be more treasures of which I’m unaware, but now I’ll be more on the lookout for them and happy to share my discoveries here.

local waters flow together

Photo by J. Harrington

In fact, I’ve another treasure I want to share, this one is a book of poems by Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek, illustrated by Richard Jones, titled Marshmallow Clouds. It seems I missed the review last March that was published in the Star Tribune.

In their new book, "Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets at Play Among Figures of Speech," Kooser and acclaimed fellow poet Connie Wanek offer 30 poems to inspire readers ages 10 and up to relish this magic in the seemingly quotidian. Organized by the elements of Fire, Water, Air and Earth, these poems encourage the notion that, "as if it were a favorite cat or dog, playing with your imagination can keep it healthy and happy," as Kooser writes in their afterword.

Similar to an earlier collaboration, Braided Creek, between Kooser and Jim Harrison, the poems are not identified by poet. I think that helps me pay attention to what’s been written rather  than trying to second guess what the poet means.

Childhood Stories

By Matthew Rohrer

They learned to turn off the gravity in an auditorium

and we all rose into the air,

the same room where they demonstrated

pow-wows and prestidigitation.

 

But not everyone believed it.

That was the most important lesson

I learned—that a truck driven by a dog

could roll down a hill at dusk

and roll right off a dock into a lake

and sink, and if no one believes you

then what is the point

of telling them wonderful things?

 

I walked home from the pow-wow

on an early winter night in amazement:

they let me buy the toy tomahawk!

As soon as I got home I was going

to hit my sister with it, but I didn’t know this.

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How I spent my morning

Thoughts while in the dentist chair this morning:

• It’s only a week until Imbolc, the Celtic end of winter [end of Celtic winter?]


• I need to refresh my knowledge of fishing with my tenkara rod


• (Hope this visit goes well)


• Valentine’s Day is only three weeks away


• It’ll be wonderful when it’s again warm enough to sit outside and enjoy a coffee at Coffee Talk


• (So far, so good)


• Maybe I should drop by some local fly fishing shops before Valentine’s Day and see what’s new


• St. Paul still hasn’t mastered snow plowing


• (This seems to be going quicker than anticipated)


• Tom Rosenbauer’s Fly Fishing for Trout, The Next Level makes more sense than lots of other books I’ve read on fly fishing, or is it a case of “when the pupil is ready, the master will appear?”


• Time to clean and organize fly fishing stuff


• (Done already? GREAT!)

fly fishing nymphs in a fly box

Photo by J. Harrington

A permanent crown is on the tooth I broke a few weeks ago and a couple of small cavities got drilled and filled. Obviously, I didn’t concentrate on my breathing while meditating in the chair, but anticipatory pleasures of warmer days served the purpose. Soon it will be time to actually go fishing rather than contemplating going fishing. The interim will be spent in yet another futile effort to get organized.

Trout

By Kathryn Starbuck

I do my best 

to keep pointlessness 

at bay. But here, 

wet above my 

knees, I let it fly. 

Here, hot and cold, 

fingers thick with 

thinking, I try to 

tie the fly and look 

for the net, loosening 

the philosophical   

knot of why I came 

here today, not yet 

knowing whether 

I’ll free or fry 

the rainbows 

and browns once 

they’re mine.

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Home waters

Are you aware that the work "brook" has two very different meanings? They are

1. a natural stream of water normally smaller than and often tributary to a river, and,
2. to stand for

Synonyms for the first meaning include:

beck [British], bourn (or bourne), brooklet, burn [British], creek, gill [British], rill, rivulet, run [chiefly Midland], runlet, runnel, streamlet

And why, you are by now thinking, do we care about this? To which I answer: because I've recently rediscovered that there are reports that brook trout exist in some "streams" relatively nearby and, apropos of yesterday's "I believe I'll go fishing" assessment posted here, this drib of information is just the motivation I need to spend less time in a chair in the living room and more time in the seat of the Jeep looking for those streams, their access points and assessing their potential fishability.

is this a brook, creek, stream, rill or run?

Photo by J. Harrington

In a directly related vein, I've noticed that the British and some other cultures have many more terms for small streams than we Americans use. In fact, we have a difficult to impossible time agreeing on the relationship among brook, creek, etc. Follow this link for one example and this link for another. If, as several folks and indigenous peoples assert, language is a critical connection to our places, the lack of clear, consistent language for our  flowing waters would seem to be reflected in our treatment of them more as waste disposal systems than as sources of life and our drinking water.

In any case, I'm hoping through a search for local brook trout populations to find a version of my own home waters, a stretch of brook, creek, or river I can visit regularly and get to know intimately.

Hamlen Brook

By Richard Wilbur

At the alder-darkened brink 
Where the stream slows to a lucid jet 
I lean to the water, dinting its top with sweat, 
And see, before I can drink, 

A startled inchling trout 
Of spotted near-transparency, 
Trawling a shadow solider than he. 
He swerves now, darting out 

To where, in a flicked slew 
Of sparks and glittering silt, he weaves 
Through stream-bed rocks, disturbing foundered leaves, 
And butts then out of view 

Beneath a sliding glass 
Crazed by the skimming of a brace 
Of burnished dragon-flies across its face, 
In which deep cloudlets pass 

And a white precipice 
Of mirrored birch-trees plunges down 
Toward where the azures of the zenith drown. 
How shall I drink all this? 

Joy’s trick is to supply 
Dry lips with what can cool and slake, 
Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache 
Nothing can satisfy.

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It's "whatever works" time!

It's bread baking day, to go with the cassoulet we're having for dinner. I don't remember ever having cassoulet before. There's an increasing clash going on between trying new foods and what our taste buds are used to. Often we find the new tastes good, just different. That necessitates adjustment to our normal hierarchy of good, better, best or the binary distinction of good versus not good. The phrase "good, but not to my taste," is getting used these days so is the concept of "it depends."

Back in the last millineum, when we were first learning to fly fish, we thought we had learned about fly lines and rods and flies and fish types. Weight forward for bluegill poppers and largemouth bass bugs. Five or six weight line and matching rod of six feet (fiberglass) for panfish; eight feet and six or seven weigh for bass; four or five weight double taper for trout. Over the years we accumulated different rod lengths and tried sinking and sink-tip lines and picked up on the idea of using one line weight more than the rod was rated for if we were making short casts, which was the case on many small, local trout streams.

Because we're much better at fantasy than at organization, over the years we ended up with a handful of fly lines and spare spools that weren't clearly labeled. That makes it challenging to match rod and line, even though all of our rods, but one, are clearly labeled. That one is a bamboo rod we made from an Orvis kit. It's 7' 6" long and takes what we seem to remember is a four or five weight line, but we're not sure.

a range of fly lines

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we were researching if there's a proper way to match a known line weight to an unknown rod rating. It appears the world of fly lines has become considerably more nuanced (complicated and confusing) since we started out. The Orvis Streamside blog summarizes the situation thusly:

In conclusion, there are few hard and fast rules. Fly casters have a wide range of opinions about these issues. Rods vary greatly, lines are available in a huge variety of designs, and fishing applications are endless. The only truly hard and fast rules are the dynamics that govern the end result. To form a tight loop, one must move the rod tip in a straight path and avoid abrupt application of power. Find the rod and line that enable you to accomplish that, and you’ll be happy.

A similar assessment is provided by a different fly-fishing blog, but the most significant find made during our brief search of the internets was provided by a magazine we used to subscribe to, Fly Fisherman: How To Fly Cast:

The old way (and the wrong way) to teach fly casting is to have a beginner move his arm like the arm of a metronome back and forth from the 10 o'clock position to the 2 o'clock position. This was quaint in the movie and book A River Runs Through It, but in real-life situations, your arm will need to move along different paths to deal with different situations.

We became self-taught in the days of the old, wrong way. This also fits together nicely with the advice that practicing casting is the best know way to improve, even more so than buying a new rod or reel or line. Maybe it would be a good idea to start subscribing to Fly Fisherman and/or join the Federation of Fly Fishers / Fly Fishers International.

 

The Song of Wandering Aengus

By William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

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Removing flies from our ointment

This morning's blue, clear, sky held a rising sun in the East and a setting, full moon in the West. It felt almost as if the universe were starting to right itself after near capsizing. It was also pretty enough to make us feel good about being alive.

During the past few days, we've been sneaking in a few moments of something we've been threatening to do for the past several years. We've actually begun to organize our fly fishing boxes and may even try to identify the names of many of the trout flies we have at hand. For the moment, we're just putting nymphs with nymphs; dry flies with dry flies; wet flies, which we almost never fish (personal bias) have been sorted and set aside for some years now. We're still thinking about a separate box for terrestrials (hoppers, crickets and ants) and/or "attractors." In the process, we've discovered we have many more trout flies than we realized, sort of like our situation with books.

a variety of "prince" nymphs (top & bottom) plus misc.

Photo by J. Harrington

In the process of playing with, er, working on organizing, our toys, er, fishing tools, we've made a startling discovery. Much more progress is evident when we actually do the sorting work than when we spent much of our time sitting around thinking about how things should be done. Not that we're about to join the "chuck and chance it" school of fishing (catch what we did there?, heh, heh), but there's an outside possibility we may be overthinking things and, as we do so, turning pleasure into pain. A large part of our revised approach was prompted by the idea below, that we came across as we were skimming through our copy of Tom Rosenbauer's Fly Fishing for Trout, The Next Level.

... There are always tons of hatch-matching patterns available, and better ones come out each year. Get a bunch of popular flies that imitate mayflies in the dun, emerger, and spinner stages; caddisflies in mergers and adults; and stonefly adults (you don't need emergers for stoneflies, just egg-laying adults) in a few sizes and shades and have at it.

In the next paragraph Rosenbauer writes "In practice, you'll learn your local hatches and which flies and what stages are important." If it turns out we never do learn the name of the fly we're fishing at any given moment, then we can, in all honesty, reply "Dunno" if asked by a fellow angler "What are they taking?" If we take a photo of the fly being fished at any given time, that can substitute for a name and if we actually start keeping a fishing journal, instead of intending to, we may have fun as we make progress. It's almost as if we've been given an early Christmas present this year.

Things keep sorting themselves.

By Jane Hirshfield

Does the butterfat know it is butterfat,

milk know it’s milk?

No.

Something just goes and something remains.

Like a boardinghouse table:

men on one side, women on the other.

Nobody planned it.

Plaid shirts next to one another,

talking in accents from the Midwest.

Nobody plans to be a ghost.

Later on, the young people sit in the kitchen.

Soon enough, they’ll be the ones 

to stumble Excuse me and quickly withdraw.

But they don’t know that.

No one can ever know that.

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Any nest in a storm?

I don't want to name names, but someone in this household is afraid of thunder. It makes her very nervous. She seeks security and reassurance with lots of petting and snuggling. This didn't used to be an issue. It's not clear what happened to turn a blondish, yellow lab cross-breed into a scaredy cat. (Ssshhh, don't tell her I said wrote that!) She thought that maybe an early breakfast at 2:30ish am followed by a walk might help her settle down. We had a break in the rain so we tried that. It worked for awhile, until the next round of lightning and thunder rolled through. I am not responsible of any typos that may pop up in today's posting. I thought I'd foregone sleep deprivation when the youngest child started school those many years ago. I was overly optimistic (me? 😉).

what makes you think I'm afraid of a little thunder?

Photo by J. Harrington

At least we didn't get the five inches or so that flooded several counties South of us, but the "wet spot" in the back yard is once again showing water. It had shrunk to a layer of mud during the past few weeks. The low spot in the driveway is once again a puddle. Birds frequently use it to take a bath. I suspect, from the news and weather reports this morning, the trout streams we were planning on fishing thus week may not be in prime condition, so we'll save them for another time.

a bluebird egg in an abandoned nest

Photo by J. Harrington

Before the storms arrive last night, I saw what I think was a bluebird perched on top of the reinstalled bluebird house. It may be that the plan to provide a potential home for a second brood this Summer might pay off. Once before we managed a picture of a bluebird egg that had failed to hatch, so we have a decent idea of what bluebird eggs look like. I'll slog out this afternoon and report back tomorrow if the hordes of deer flies don't grab me and drag me off into the woods.

We hope you remain warm, dry, and virus-free and that your house isn't in one of the recently identified flood-prone areas that our new, more volatile weather patterns are helping us discover.

Egg

By Brian Swann

We are in the position of defining myth by the shape of its absence.
-Sean Kane, Wisdom of the Mythtellers

The bluebird's cold mistimed egg

fetched up from the one-legged

box after the pair had left for

points south & unknown (never,

as it turned out, to return) I

renested in the half-geode by

the windowsill where it gleamed

&, months becoming years, seemed

about to last forever, grow more

consistent with itself, holding its pure

blue firmament up over what by now

was nothing, till one January day, snow

melting to a fast flood,

I blew it softly onto my palm so I could

hold its cerulean up against new sky,

home against home, where it lay

weightless & delicate as the Xmas ornament

we'd just put away, but when I went

to roll it gently back onto its bed,

& leave it there, I saw a thread,

a crack, another, watched it sink in

slowly on itself, shard on shard collapsing

from my touch & breath, relaxing

into the shape of its absence

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Water is life. A river is water. Therefore...

I think I've read Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It at least a couple of times and watched the movie once or twice. An all-time favorite quotation of mine comes from the novel:

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”

a famous trout stream near "The Cities"

Photo by J. Harrington

For most of my adult life, I too have been haunted by waters. In my case it was first the Atlantic Ocean and several of the rivers that feed into it. Since moving to Minnesota, I've been drawn more to the  area's rivers than its lakes. Superior is the exception because it is an inland sea lacking only a salt tang in the air. My copy of Maclean's book is coming off of the library shelf and put in the stack for reading next Winter, when trout, fly-fishing, and much of the open water of our rivers are but temporally distant fantasies. To accompany  the novel, I'll look at the wonderful photography recently published in the Star Tribune under the title of Maclean's novel and eponymous movie. You can see it yourself if you follow this link: A river runs through it. For my taste, it's one of the better things the Strib has published.

fingerling trout in a "Trout in the Classroom" aquarium

Photo by J. Harrington

Having fished an ocean and several of the West's more famous trout streams, I admit a bias against narrow, brush-tunneled, creeks that serve as home to many of the Midwest's native and naturalized trout. In the Driftless Area of Southwestern Wisconsin and Southeast Minnesota, lots of the rivers and streams also are subject to devastating flash floods. It's nice to see some pictures of them when they're on their best behavior and to be reminded that I haven't fished any of the trout waters near The Cities since they've been improved and restored although I need to get back in shape before I try fishing stretches as adventurous as the one John Lenczewski is wading. These days it's rare that anything in a newspaper helps improve my Summer, but this time the Star Tribune landed a record.

The Trout

Amy Lowell - 1874-1925

          Naughty little speckled trout,
          Can't I coax you to come out?
          Is it such great fun to play
          In the water every day?

          Do you pull the Naiads' hair
          Hiding in the lilies there?
          Do you hunt for fishes' eggs,
          Or watch tadpoles grow their legs?

          Do the little trouts have school
          In some deep sun-glinted pool,
          And in recess play at tag
          Round that bed of purple flag?

          I have tried so hard to catch you,
          Hours and hours I've sat to watch you;
          But you never will come out,
          Naughty little speckled trout!

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Accepting imperfection

In my younger days, decades ago, I sometimes drove to Idaho in the Summer. At the time I had in-laws who Summered in Rexburg, ID. It took some research and adjustment to recognize that about this time of year snowmelt still had many Idaho trout streams high and discolored. It wasn't until July or later that the flows moderated to "fishable" conditions.

these flies still need to get wet

Photo by J. Harrington

As today's posting is being written, about 25 or 50 miles+/- East or West in a storm track stands between us, our local trout streams (the ones we've been trying to get to for weeks now), and either about .25 inches or 3 to 5 inches of rain tonight and tomorrow. Rain in the higher amounts may well despoil local fishing for a week or two, or more.

a trout stream at a fishable level

Photo by J. Harrington

Fortunately, I'm once again in a mode of studying wabi sabi, a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.  I'm hoping any serious imperfections in the fishability of our trout streams will be transient. (I know that's not how it's "supposed" to work, but, if the sandal fits, ....) Thursday, Friday, and the upcoming weekend look to offer ideal weather. I hereby commit to fitting in at least two trips, even if brief and imperfect, between now and Monday, the Ides of June. If I'm successful, there will be some photos of at least one stream. Any trout photos will be  icing on a cake yet to be baked.

In lieu of our usual poem, please accept the following as one of the better prose poems ever written by a fisherman. Background on the poem and its author can be found here.

Testament of a Fisherman

I fish because I love to. Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people 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 what 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. Because I suspect that men are going this way for the last time and I for one don’t want to waste the trip. Because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters. Because in the woods I can find solitude without loneliness. … And finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important, but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant and not nearly so much fun.

— Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman

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What has Minnesota Pollution Control got against trout streams?

When did the Minnesota legislature, or the Walz administration, put the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency [MnPCA] in charge of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources fisheries?  MnPCA's proposed water quality standards revisions for what are now and should remain designated as "trout streams" propose to substitute "cold water fisheries" as in:

"Class 2A4 designation of cold water communities has in the past relied almost solely on the DNR list of designated trout waters in Minn. R. 6264.0050. With the development and use of improved tools to assess the condition of Minnesota’s waters (e.g., indices of biotic integrity, biological criteria) some differences in management goals between the MPCA and DNR in designating cold water systems need to be addressed. A small number of waters in Minn. R. 6264.0050 are not appropriate for the MPCA to manage as cold water and there are some waters not included on the DNR trout waters list that the MPCA should manage as cold water habitat."

a Minnesota North Woods trout stream

Photo by J. Harrington

We are grateful that WaterLegacy provided a "heads up" notice or the innocuous appearing language in MnPCA's web pages might have slipped by us. We've not yet had chance to read in detail the proposed changes nor the Statement of Need and Reasonableness. WaterLegacy has done their usual yeoman-like job and provides this summary on their web page:

Here’s what we understand so far about the MPCA proposed brave new rules:

• No Minnesota waters would be listed as “trout waters.” This term that Minnesotans have understood for decades would be replaced with “cold water habitat.”
• The entire section of rules (ch. 6264) where trout waters are listed so Minnesotans can see which waters are protected as trout waters would be removed. Tributaries to trout waters would no longer be protected.
• “Cold water habitat” would be defined to require a new level of proof that the water supported a healthy population of trout and other cold water biota, proof which may no longer even be possible.
• In fact, when industrial pollution and climate change have affected trout, the MPCA could be required to remove protection for cold water habitat waters.
• The rule would stop automatic listing of trout waters as Class A drinking waters. Under existing rules, all trout waters have to meet a 250 parts per million limit on sulfate, a standard mining industry polluters have tried to remove.
• Finally, looking at the changes proposed by MPCA for actual waters, more than 70 percent of the river miles affected by the changes downgrade the designated classification of waters.

The MPCA will only hold a public hearing in front of an administrative law judge if 25 OR MORE MINNESOTANS ASK FOR A HEARING. The Deadline is Nov. 7, 2019. 

When we accept a term such as cold water habitat, it seems to me that we're contributing in a different way to the degradation of nature. Most of us understand what's meant by "trout stream." When regulatory agencies hide reality behind unnecessary technical changes, that diminishes our understanding of and relationship to our environments. We need both head and heart linkages to our natural environment. To describe the kind of changes proposed to water quality standards:

That’s what University of Washington psychology professor Peter Kahn calls “environmental generational amnesia” — the idea that each generation perceives the environment into which it’s born, no matter how developed, urbanized or polluted, as the norm. And so what each generation comes to think of as “nature” is relative, based on what they’re exposed to. In a new paper, which Kahn co-authored with doctoral student Thea Weiss, in the latest issue of Children, Youth and Environments, they argue that more frequent and meaningful interactions with nature can enhance our connection to — and definition of — the natural world. [full article here]

Please take a look at the proposed changes and consider  being one of the Minnesotans requesting a contested case hearing. The Pollution Control Agency has tried similar legerdemain regarding the Dark River classifications. We noted our dissatisfaction with those changes also. Perhaps it's become a fantasy that government agencies would actually do the jobs they're supposed to, instead of trying to make the world safe for industry.

[RELATED: MPCA rejects U.S. Steel’s Dark River proposal]

Trout

By Kathryn Starbuck

I do my best 

to keep pointlessness 

at bay. But here, 

wet above my 

knees, I let it fly. 

Here, hot and cold, 

fingers thick with 

thinking, I try to 

tie the fly and look 

for the net, loosening 

the philosophical   

knot of why I came 

here today, not yet 

knowing whether 

I’ll free or fry 

the rainbows 

and browns once 

they’re mine.

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Coulee creeks

We spent parts of yesterday and today exploring the coulees in the area where we're staying. Last August, this region suffered inundation from record-breaking floods. There's been lots of clean up and lots more remains to be done. Life goes on and, by appearances, so does the fishing of the creeks that drain the coulees. We saw quite a few anglers, or, at least empty vehicles in turnouts, today as we drove around.

timber coulee flood debris timber

Photo by J. Harrington

Based on the reports we had heard, and the debris height that remains, we might have expected every trout, mayfly, caddis, and scud to have ended up down in the Mississippi River along with trees and large chunks of the hillsides. Reports from Wisconsin's DNR, via the folks at The Driftless Angler, are that the decline, if any, in fish populations is slight. We're still hoping to confirm that, but we're just working out the kinks, testing some new toys and getting back into the grove called fly-fishing, not to be confused with fishing for flies. So, the Better Half and I have been practicing our casting, checking our leaders, tie-ing on flies, and waiting out breezy times, not necessarily in that order.

Timber coulee washout and timber debris

Photo by J. Harrington

Today we stopped in Viroqua and visited Driftless Angler, the Ewetopia yarn shop, and the offices of the Valley Stewardship Network, where we picked up a copy of Reading the Driftless Landscape. We're going to see if the section on developing a Land Stewardship Management Plan will help us get better organized for our efforts on our own small parcel in the St. Croix Watershed. We haven't yet seen a comparable resource from the St. Croix River Association, but then we've not yet asked them.

Have you heard enough red-winged blackbird calls to consider them cheery? We used to file their sounds of a rusty gate hinge in the same category as fingernails on a blackboard. After listening to a multitude of them for the past few days, we've reassessed that opinion. Perhaps it's the association of squeaky gates with Spring time heart warming, instead of a transition from Winter into Spring that's triggered the readjustment. The combination of blackbirds, frogs, toads and whatever else is calling, calling, calling in the fields makes cacophonous sound charming. Now, if only we can complete the transition from fishing to catching.

[NOTE: this was posted a few days after it was written. We neglected to bring the cord that would let us transfer pictures from the camera to the computer.]

Such Singing in the Wild Branches

It was spring
and I finally heard him
among the first leaves––
then I saw him clutching the limb

in an island of shade
with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still

and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness––
and that's when it happened,

when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree––
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,

and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward

like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing––
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed

not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfect blue sky–––all of them

were singing.
And, of course, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn't last

For more than a few moments.
It's one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,

is that, once you've been there,
you're there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?

Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then––open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.

-Mary Oliver

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Wild and Scenic: Golden!

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the designation of the Namekagon and St. Croix Rivers as the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. One of many wonderful aspects of where we live is that we're on the western edge of the St. Croix watershed. Our property is a couple of miles downstream of the Sunrise River, a tributary of the St. Croix.

Wild and Scenic 50th Logo

Several years ago we started a writing and photography project focused on the Scenic St. Croix. We never finished that project. This year it's time to take another crack at it. We're going to share some of the resources we've discovered in the interval.

Recently we've been trying to find any existing anthologies of river poetry. We've only found one that we're sure of, The River's Voice: An Anthology of Poetry. From the reading that we've done over the past few years, we think there's numerous other poems that warrant inclusion or a separate volume. We're going to see how far we can get toward an augmented anthology without actually trying to get permissions and get anything (re)published. At least, that's the plan for now.

canoeing on the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

Craig Blacklock has crafted a series of photographs of the St. Croix and Namekagon, accompanied by an essay written by Walter Mondale and published as The Enduring Gift. There's an unrelated Wild and Scenic Rivers web site that has a compilation of river quotes that we will soon start wading through.

Part of our inspiration comes from an English web site we've discovered, Caught by the River. The English seem to have more excellent poets writing about their rivers than we former colonists have writing about ours. We've recently read Alice Oswald's A Sleepwalk on the Severn and Dart, each a book length work devoted to one river. On our side of "the big pond," we have Raymond Carver's outstanding The River and several of Jim Harrison's poems among other works. Then, there's Gary Snyder's incomparable Mountains and Rivers Without End, which includes several river-specific poems and, last but not least for now, there's the more expansive themes in River of Words: Youth Art and Poetry Inspired by the Natural World. We're not sure if any of you think you may need or want something like we're proposing to pull together, but the more we wrote today, the more we became sure we do.

The River

By Jim Harrison

Yes, we'll gather by the river,

the beautiful, the beautiful river.

They say it runs by the throne of God.

This is where God invented fish.

Wherever, but then God's throne is as wide

as the universe. If you're attentive you'll

see the throne's borders in the stars. We're on this side

and when you get to the other side we don't know

what will happen if anything. If nothing happens

we won't know it, I said once. Is that cynical?

No, nothing is nothing, not upsetting just

nothing. Then again maybe we'll be cast

at the speed of light through the universe

to God's throne. His hair is bounteous.

All the 5,000 birds on earth were created there.

The firstborn cranes, herons, hawks, at the back

so as not to frighten the little ones.

Even now they remember this divine habitat.

Shall we gather at the river, this beautiful river?

We'll sing with the warblers perched on his eyelashes.

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There's a word for that

Sunshine today is bright, and warm enough to trigger snow melt even with below-freezing temperatures. It makes us think of both John Denver's Sunshine On My Shoulders and Pete Seeger's Turn, Turn, Turn. It's now time for the season of Spring to flush out Winter's remnants.

March is melting season

Photo by J. Harrington

If we were in Scotland, snow melt season would be the time for us to look for these waters:

...a caochan, for instance, is “a slender moor-stream obscured by vegetation such that it is virtually hidden from sight”, while a feadan is “a small stream running from a moorland loch”, and a fèith is “a fine vein-like watercourse running through peat, often dry in the summer”....

We aren't aware of that many different terms in the U.S. for different water courses, nor do we know of a compendium like Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks, from which the preceding quote is extracted. There is, of course, Home Ground, edited by the inimitable Barry Lopez. We've been working for some time to identify our "water words" in their Home Ground. We're up to and into the letter "P" and have yet to find anything as lyrical as a feadan. Perhaps the lyrical words are hiding in the "R's"  (rills) and "S's" (streams).

wetland, marsh, slough, ...

Photo by J. Harrington

If we had many more words to describe specific landmarks in each of our neighborhoods, would that help or harm our ability to communicate? We're thinking here about the Linnaean binomial nomenclature system, developed to limit confusion related to the same flora or fauna having different common names in different locales, although even that has somewhat different rules for fauna and flora. We've been tripping over the Families, Genus and species in aquatic entomology as we try to sort out our dry flies and nymphs and we continue to find our interest in learning phenology and local plants gets sidetracked by the need to acquire whole new vocabularies. Perhaps our Paleolithic ancestors were better off using a variety of grunts. Perhaps we need to learn to see the world in a grain of sand and discover what that does for our vocabulary.

                     Auguries of Innocence

By William Blake

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage 

A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons

Shudders Hell thr' all its regions 

A dog starvd at his Masters Gate

Predicts the ruin of the State 

A Horse misusd upon the Road

Calls to Heaven for Human blood 

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear 

A Skylark wounded in the wing 

A Cherubim does cease to sing 

The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight

Does the Rising Sun affright 

Every Wolfs & Lions howl

Raises from Hell a Human Soul 

The wild deer, wandring here & there 

Keeps the Human Soul from Care 

The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife

And yet forgives the Butchers knife 

The Bat that flits at close of Eve

Has left the Brain that wont Believe

The Owl that calls upon the Night

Speaks the Unbelievers fright

He who shall hurt the little Wren

Shall never be belovd by Men 

He who the Ox to wrath has movd

Shall never be by Woman lovd

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spiders enmity 

He who torments the Chafers Sprite

Weaves a Bower in endless Night 

The Catterpiller on the Leaf

Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief 

Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly 

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh 

He who shall train the Horse to War

Shall never pass the Polar Bar 

The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat 

Feed them & thou wilt grow fat 

The Gnat that sings his Summers Song

Poison gets from Slanders tongue 

The poison of the Snake & Newt

Is the sweat of Envys Foot 

The poison of the Honey Bee

Is the Artists Jealousy

The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags

Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags 

A Truth thats told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent 

It is right it should be so 

Man was made for Joy & Woe 

And when this we rightly know 

Thro the World we safely go 

Joy & Woe are woven fine 

A Clothing for the soul divine 

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine 

The Babe is more than swadling Bands

Throughout all these Human Lands

Tools were made & Born were hands 

Every Farmer Understands

Every Tear from Every Eye

Becomes a Babe in Eternity 

This is caught by Females bright

And returnd to its own delight 

The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar 

Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore 

The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath

Writes Revenge in realms of Death 

The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air

Does to Rags the Heavens tear 

The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun 

Palsied strikes the Summers Sun

The poor Mans Farthing is worth more

Than all the Gold on Africs Shore

One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands

Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands 

Or if protected from on high 

Does that whole Nation sell & buy 

He who mocks the Infants Faith

Shall be mockd in Age & Death 

He who shall teach the Child to Doubt

The rotting Grave shall neer get out 

He who respects the Infants faith

Triumphs over Hell & Death 

The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons

Are the Fruits of the Two seasons 

The Questioner who sits so sly 

Shall never know how to Reply 

He who replies to words of Doubt

Doth put the Light of Knowledge out 

The Strongest Poison ever known

Came from Caesars Laurel Crown 

Nought can Deform the Human Race

Like to the Armours iron brace 

When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow

To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow 

A Riddle or the Crickets Cry

Is to Doubt a fit Reply 

The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile

Make Lame Philosophy to smile 

He who Doubts from what he sees

Will neer Believe do what you Please 

If the Sun & Moon should Doubt 

Theyd immediately Go out 

To be in a Passion you Good may Do 

But no Good if a Passion is in you 

The Whore & Gambler by the State

Licencd build that Nations Fate 

The Harlots cry from Street to Street 

Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet 

The Winners Shout the Losers Curse 

Dance before dead Englands Hearse 

Every Night & every Morn

Some to Misery are Born 

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to Endless Night 

We are led to Believe a Lie

When we see not Thro the Eye

Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night 

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 

God Appears & God is Light

To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 

But does a Human Form Display

To those who Dwell in Realms of day

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