The 15th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

THE CONUNDRUM

On the one hand the act of man, on the other the act of God!

The 13th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

A FREAK OF NATURE

 and other motivational factoids

I started out as a wildlife photographer and somehow weaseled my way into the Easton Waterfowl Festival in November of 1989 in Easton, Md.  Back then it was pretty prestigious to be asked to exhibit.  In fact somebody had to die to just get moved up the waiting list.  I guess they thought I had some pretty good local waterfowl images or the plague had hit and half of them died off.

My love of wildlife and nature can be traced back to age six or seven when living on a portion of my grandparents farm of 100 acres or so in southeastern Pennsylvania.  I thought the place was my personal Seringetti, and wandered all day every day.  Fields held rabbits and ground hogs, both rabid processors of vegetable matter into protein.  We had a couple of streams which held an occasional trout.  But it was what everybody called "The Big Woods" out back and on the edge of the property that held the dreams and day dreams of a six year old.  At six, property lines didn't mean much and in fact in the mid 1940's not too many people even posted their properties agains hunting, fishing or just plain trespass.  For a kid it was shangra la!

The play of light and how it changes minute to minute conjures up all the scenes that my parents and grand parents imparted to me though all the books they thought proper at the time.  I applied those stories such as (God forbid today) "Uncle Remus" and brer fox, brer rabbit, et. al.  Today, young readers are more likely to conjure up a white owl in silent flight through the shadows.  Or even Harry Poter himself racing through the stands of hardwood.  It doesn't make any difference if it is Brer Rabbit or Harry Potter.  It's the process!

These are places where young men and women with skulls full of mush can create the plans for a lifetime.  Leave them go, leave them dream, and our future leaders will be all the better for the experience.

  Reading (or being read to), learning, then trundling off to apply that word to what in whatever section of the universe the young person has handy, simply moves the fantasy closer to reality. 

I guess that is a long way around to simply say that I love to sit in a quiet woods, pretend I am a bushel of apples, watch the light change, and the animals go about their daily duty.  Seems the only place anymore to just sit and sort. 

I did that once on the opening day of deer hunting season in Central Pennsylvania.  It was a season that led me to put down the gun and stop hunting.  Because it was opening day and the woods would be crawling with hunters (maybe more than deer), I wisely climbed in total darkness to the top of the mountain.  The deer were down in the valleys still foraging as they do during the night hours.  They then look for cover during the day to safely chew their cud, ruminate, or whatever they do with their food.  As daylight finally broke I heard the scramble of a dozen or so deer climbing the mountain off to the left in a controlled panic created by the hunters below .  I had chosen a very large elm tree (wider than my own body) to sit below with my back against the trunk.  Virtually inisible when I sat still.  The deer, about a hundred yards away, started to work accross the ridge towards me.  Only one small fork horn buck in the bunch.  As luck would have it one of the does was coming directly to my tree.  Now I am sitting on the ground and she is nose to ground looking for acorns.  As her nose came around the corner of the tree, we were virtually eye to eye.  Could not have been more than six inches to a foot.  "Good morning lady" I said in a soft voice.  Deer's eyes like human's can widen to saucer size or so it seemed.  She immediately snorted and jumped backwards about three feet.  She was absolutely stunned that something else that smelled as bad as me was sitting on her ridge.  She didn't run too far and those deer milled around for a couple of hours.

  Good stuff!

The 12th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

CAUTION: SUCCULENT WHEN WET

I made a sea food pasta dish for dinner last night which featured clams and shrimp.  It is amazing how the seafood industry can go out and harvest the critters in the sea, marshes, and mud and come up with stuff which is almost identical in size. 

I suppose that the clams we buy in the super markets or fish stores are all farm raised.  There is generally not a fraction of an inch in size amongst them all.  To a lesser extent the shrimp where at least you get a particular count per pound depending upon size.  Must not be farm raised.  I know that the shrimping industry is large and thriving off the coast of South Carolina because when we come back from the beach all the locals are on the roads selling shrimp.  Must be a Forest Gump thing.

Over a hundred years ago oysters were plentiful in the Chesapeake bay and Watermen (that's the name for commercial fishermen on the bay) were restricted to hand tonging for the succulent critters.  Hand tonging is tedious and hard work.  Long lengths of wood (poles actually)  are hinged about three feet from the ends on which have two opposing baskets of fingers are mounted.  The waterman lowers the head of the tongs into the water, sometimes up to 25 feet, scrabbles around with the head by opening and closing the poles until the basket is full.  The tongs are then pulled from the water and dumped on a culling board and the whole process starts all over again.  Most tongers have the arms and shoulders of an Olympic weightlifter and the waist of a female ballet dancer.

As the 1800's waned the oystering in New England was giving out,  the fishermen up there were looking for a new and fertile ground upon which to fish.  Their methods were more commercial if you will than those of the tongers in the Chesapeake region.  They employed "Skipjacks", or boats from which long metal lines held a metal and netting scrape affair.  Of course their boats were sailing vessels that needed to provide a stable platform for their work.  In fact, their boats were built one third wide as they were long.  Thus, if it was a 45 foot boat, it was 15 feet wide with a flat bottom enabling shallow water dredging.  By the late 1800's the invasion of the Chesapeake oyster beds was on.  Arguments, fights, battles, and even wars ensued as the time old method of tonging slowly disappeared and the dredgers increased in numbers.  The catch of oysters also increased and the argument was made that the natural supply of oysters could not keep up with these new methods of scraping up entire oyster bars. That fear soon proved to be a prophecy as the numbers of oysters in the Chesapeake have, a hundred ten years later, dwindled from millions of bushels a year to around a hundred thousand.

This is a long way around to tell you about the first oyster I ever ate.  It was probably twenty years ago and we were on a skipjack, the Elsworth, out of Rock Hall, MD to dredge for oysters and photograph the lifestyle of the independent men called watermen.  We dredged, the called it drudged because of the hard work, about a half bushel and the captain set about shucking a few for an on board oyster stew.  As I remember it was February and about forty degrees.  It was cold!  And a bowl of what I thought was going to be warm milk sounded good.  Asked if I ever had raw errsters (spelling correct and pronunciation as spelled).  To which I replied something like "ugh" as it brought back memories of the strange things I had to eat during college fraternity pledge years.

Long story short!  I loved it.  Yeah it was slimy.  Slid right down, but even with some homemade cocktail sauce I got the very simple taste of the meat as well as the fresh sea water.  It was colder than the ambient temperature and it was truly a delicacy.

The boats are called Skipjacks.  They are unique to the bay and five years ago there were only a few, like under ten, still working on the bay.  Most of them are now outfitted to take tourists on short day trips around the bay.  The demise of the boat was dependent upon a number of things like over fishing, lack of oysters, competition from new methods of fishing, and just a general declining water resource. 

The 11th day of the fifth month of the year or the Camellia

WHILST CONTEMPLATING MY NAVEL

Creativity is a really strange critter.  I would really love to write a blog everyday and get lots of feedback from friend and foe alike.  But alas the juices seem to run at the strangest  times and fleeting ideas are just that----------Fleet!

Yesterday I was putting together yet another new product using my New Jersey Lighthouse images.  Why New Jersey you say and not Arizona or Montana?  Well, I suppose the unsaid is just as good as a photo of a thousand words.................there ain't no lighthouses out there.  Like Willy Sutton when asked "Why he robbed Banks", his retort was "That's where the money is"!

A dear, departed friend of mine lived in Rodanthe, NC for a lot of years and displayed at the Easton Waterfowl show for many years.  Dick Darcy, or D squared as he signed all his correspondence, retired from the Washington Post as their Premier sports photographer back when Mohamed Ali was still Cassius Clay.  That dates us both because there will probably be readers who don't even know who Ali is, let alone Clay.    Rodanthe is nothing more than a wet spot in Route 12  about half way down the outer banks between Kill Devil Hills and Hatteras Village.  The big claim to fame in Rodanthe is the  Chicamacomico Live Saving Station and Dick's "Art" studio.  It took me about two years to learn how to pronounce the former and about two hours to whip through Dick's store.

This store was what you might call an artist's junk shop.  It of course held all of Dick's work, the product of an old black and white photographer, and whatever he could scrape up off the beach.  Old decoys made by lesser names as well as some of the top carvers he had known over the years sat gathering dust.  I think that there was an old roll top desk, just to complete the image.  And clutter from a life of memorabilia.  He was the closest thing to a true "Beach bum" that I have ever seen.  And in that respect I have always envied him.

This man was about 5'6" tall and weighed in about a hundred pounds.  I guess his diminutive size was directly related to the amount of cigarettes he smoked.  Despite his size he had a dry wit that would be displayed as soon as you started to talk to him.  He would arrive at Easton, which at the time was the premier wildlife art show in the "World",  with about a dozen framed 16x20 black and white photos.  When those were sold he would just sit around and critique all the rest of us.  The rest of us would have box upon box of  "Stuff" and take hours to set up.  Dick would hang his prints, come over to where I was setting up and ask me to go and have some oysters with him.  Man knew what was important in life. Needless to say, I would have to stop what I was doing and off we would go looking for some fresh Chesapeake Bay oysters on the half shell.  It became a tradition for us.  His claim to fame was a portrait of a lab retriever named "Rego" which  belonged to one of the Washington Redskin running backs.  Sold it every year more times than I can remember.

At any rate, I digress.  The year we first introduced the "Lighthouses of Maryland" posters, Dick was just amazed at how many we were selling.  It seemed every time he looked up another poster was being signed and carried by his booth and carried out of the place.  Now this was a time when all the photos had to have something to do with either ducks or geese but was evolving  towards accepting other north American wildlife.  I argued that we had tons of seagulls and cormorants on the lighthouses and hence it qualified.  Long story short.  He took an old 16x20 frame with a blank white board and drew squares with his pen in columns and rows.  Titled the thing "The lighthouses of Montana", of which of course there are none.  He hung the dam thing in the middle of his booth for three days just to mock us.  Proof was in the eating, while he sold most his pictures we sold a ton of posters.  Good times.

The poster is in it's third printing and I guess we have sold over 12,000 copies of it.  Dick is gone but my son has one of his old black and white swan, flight, photos.  I am not sure he know what he has or the history behind it, but I get to see the image from time to time.

  All this stuff just spews out of my navel and I have to do something with it.  Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

The tenth day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

"WOOOOOOOOSH"

That sound done quietly replicates the sound the wind makes when whispering through a pine woods in New Hampshire.  Or in any big woods of pine trees for that matter.  It gets a little louder when the winds get up to around fifty mph, but no matter where I go in this great country I can still hear it when I am in a quiet corner and close my eyes. 

Blowing too hard and one can hear the "Booooooonk" as one tree sways squarely into another. Primary trunks and main branches crashing  into one another.  An occasional "Scraaaaaaaaaaaank", the sound slowly drawn out when two giants scrape together and the bark has to learn to be tough to sustain life.

    But lesser winds only produce the "Woooooooosh", a soothing sound that is the lullaby of the north woods.

I guess that the competition for sunlight makes tall and spindly pine trees reach into the clouds where they can pick up some additional moisture when the night winds and breezes give way to a foggy morning calm.  On such mornings there is an Erie feeling to the woods, quiet has returned after a night of blowing winds, and the critters of the big woods awaken to call to their kin and search for food.

It's a palpable feeling that stays with one regardless of future journeys.  One only needs to close one's eyes to re-experience such solitude amidst the struggle of the giants.

Cinco De Mayo

New Hampshire Star Log 2010


April 28th-Wed
Ice out a month ago and Winnie Derby cancelled cause of lack of fish or some other political reasons beyond our knowledge. Lack of fish on this trip was the key phrase. Putt (the small boat) put on the dock until we could borrow a motor from Scotty and arrival of the big boat delayed for lack of parts.

Snow this morning in Melvin Village, and wasn't till 4:30 that John David, Greenfield, and Paul went out in the big boat. No runs, hits, and the only error was in going out in the first place into the teeth of a mounting gale.

The place had been opened that day by Scotty, but the wind blew a tree branch into and disconnected the water pipe into the lake. John David volunteered to do the honors and in sixty degree weather with fifty degree water. Thank God for designer Vodka!

April 29th-Thurs

Abe, Skip, Green, Paul, and JD on the water by 6:45. Silly puppies, no fish, no hits, nada, nothing. Big winds all day steady 50 mph with gust to sixty something. Damn another 10 mph and we could have classified as a hurricane. Bill stayed in the house (smart) and only one other boat on the water. First ever Canada Geese on the lake. Saw an eagle and Mergansers. Putt not running but could not have used it anyway. Cards and BS!

April 30th -Fri

No fish. So much poker being played that Paul said the breasts on the ST. Pauly girl bottle of non-alcoholic beer were beginning to look pretty good. Frey had a good baseball hand that stuffed Green. He declared four threes when he had 3 threes, a nine with a ten kicker. Will he ever learn? Threes and nines are wild Bill!

Some old memories were dredged up.

The old guy with the red coat and cowboy hat that we saw for years on the water the same as we. He seemed to know what he was doing and was just a nice guy.

We were catching fish one year regularly at a place in front of a house full of guys just like us. Up for a week of fishing and drinking adult beverages. I guess they were'nt catching as much and we were. As we went by they shouted in the New England dialect......"Save some for the Naaa-bars"! Just classic.

Then there was the New Hampshire Navy. Some other guys, much like us but without a boat, became creative. They took their swim float, mounted an outboard, coolers for beer, rod holders, and a charcoal grill. Shouting to everyone in their way....."We can't steer...get out of the way"!

Way back when, Paul was playing a fish and snatched the fly from it's mouth rather roughly. That move forever has been called, in catch and release terms, a Smirnoff long distance release.

And finally there was the time we were using side planers...each about fifty feet off the side of the boat and holding up to three fishing lines. Dave was driving the boat and managed to wrap one of the planers around a bouy.

Just good stuff and meaning nothing to anyone other than us.

May Day-Sat

Finally on the water in both boats. No Salmon. Skip one 2.5 lb bass that doesn't count. Tommy allegedly with one lake trout down three hundred feet on metal. Doesn't count. John Greenfield and Abe witnessed the bass catch from the dock, so they were given the idea about how it is all done.

Skip and Bill in Putt. It looked like JD had a large fish hooked and Paul was waving at it with the net. Their boat kept turning so we couldn't see much but the fight took some time and Skip was sure the fish jumped, confirming the presence of a salmon. Finally when it was adroitly netted by Paul....it was a can of beer and not a fish. I think it was a Coors light. Skip and Bill were had again.

Later that night it was Abe's turn in the barrel as the others set up a hand of cards with him getting four wild cards and an ace. Bill and Skip were not aware of the set up and the betting got pretty wild with everybody raising Abe's bets. He could not understand it until the final bets were made and they came clean. His five aces really did not win the twenty some odd dollar pot. Great laughs.

May 1 - Sunday

Clean up and good byes. It's been a great ride.

The fourth day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

THE FIRST OF THE LAST?

Well, the 2010 version of the New Hampshire trip is in the can.  The sun is setting, and this could very well be the last time we five get together to fish for the fabeled Landlock salmon.

Landlocked is a correct term, but perhaps water-locked is more appropriated this time.  We spent from last Wednesday afternoon until this past Saturday night without a hit, strike, bight, bite, look-see, follower, or nibble from old "Salar Sebago".

Now, for all you very brighter than average followers of this dribble and who have had nothing of merit to read for the past seven days, that means we caught nary a salmon.  Oh! I did catch a 2.5 lb smallmouth bass but that doesn't count. Although it was the only fish caught on a flyrod all week.  Our host's son did claim some bragging rights by catching a small (read: small) lake trout on Saturday, on metal, on a downrigger.

  Doesn't count!

All anglers have excuses.  The weather was terrible.  It took a day and a half to get both boats on the water.  We were a month late for Ice Out.  There are fewer fish. 

OK, one at a time.

A front blew in on Wednesday night and lasted well into Friday.  We did have fifty mph winds on the lake sustained and gusts up to sixty mph.  That's 50 and 60....yep Five O and Six O.  No fish in it's right mind would be feeding in that mess.  Most of us were in our right minds by not venturing forth in such chaos.

It gave us a chance to catch up on old times, learn what was what with each other, and play some serious cards.  And it gives me a chance to introduce the "Playas".

From the right and going around the table is our host, Abe.  Aka, Boat Ride Bell.  Next two are the pretenders, Abe's two sons' --- Tommy and John David.  At the end of the table is the "House MagPie", Aka Green, Green thing, John.  Next to John's left is Bill, Willy, Willy the Cape, (As in Capon), Aka the "Bead Merchant".  And finally on the left corner is Paul, Pauley, Cop, Fuzz, DC.  We are missing one Dave, Davey, Aka the "Tumbler" who could not make the trip.  And we miss him.  Normally we are seated at this table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner only.  On this trip I think we spent almost two days there, and it did get tedious.

  Just kidding.

Here is one of the few photos we have with myself as part of the old group.  Normally the only photos of me are in the post office, but we felt that since we had a couple camera men we would put them to work and I was able to attend.

Now, dear reader, you have to remember that the first trip up there was in 1969.  We're old!  And it is a real accomplishment for all of us to just to be alive. 

We need, I have to admit it, the younger fellows there to do some of the heavy lifting.  When we put the small, 14 foot aluminum, boat in the water the motor would not start.  I rowed the thing about a hundred yards and they all wanted me to pull the cord to get it started.  My answer was "Two words....John David!"  He's forty and about a hundred pounds heavier than me.  We never did get it started as some repairs have to be made and I needed a nap.

Not only did we wake up to wind on Thursday and Friday, but the mountains in the vicinity were covered after a night time snow fall Wednesday night.  This is another first for us.  Sure it's been cold up there and we have arrived with some snow in the woods, but never have seen the mountains covered.  So here's the argument for you global warming guys.  The ice went out in March, only the third time since 1860 something and we had snow on the first of May.  Kinda contradicts itself I would say.

That's Gunstock Ski area

And to the east!

To my dear friends and anglers that have made this trip to the big lake in the last 42 years, all I can say is thanks.

Maybe when we are reincarnated, we'll come back as nets and not anglers.  But then that would take all the fun out of it.

It's been a great ride!