April prairie
Apr. 13th, 2002 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonarkI headed out at 7 a.m. to drive the hour into the country to the Park Hill Prairie. I took only a cane pole, as I wanted to leave behind even the modest technical demands of my rod and reel,
and feel every tremor of a potential fish on the end of the line.
I stopped in Princeton, a small town on Highway 380, to pick up worms, hooks, a hipper bobber than the one in my tackle box, and a bit of beef jerky [note:when I finally capitulate to a more moral vegetarian lifestyle, will need to lobby for tofu jerky or cherry jerky...whatever happened to that farmer in Michigan who was trying to market cherry sausage?]. When I got to the Prairie,
a HUGE white heron was hanging out by one of the two ponds.
He flew to the bank between the two ponds, and stood looking about, regal,wary...in a while, he flew away altogether, loping slowly, feet dangling down.
I rigged out my rigout and began to fish. Within moments, fish were biting. I soon caught, and released, seven sleek orange-breasted sunfish
and a small but not tiny bass. It's so much easier to catch fish on a cane pole, because the sensation of the strike is so immediate.
After an hour, I had caught enough fish, so
I began to hike the prairie trails. Flowers are popping up all over--little yellows and blues and purples. Other flowers are not quite in bloom, but hover, waiting. The temperature was
in the high 60s, and will head to 80 today.
It's amazing that just a month ago I was housebound due to sleet. Still, the trail was a bit damp, and I passed dozens of crawdad (crayfish) mounds. A congregation of birdwatchers, the only other park occupants,
gathered a fair distance off as if in worship around a tree. I tended to use my cheap French ebay binoculars for butterfly watching more than birdwatching. My saints are not confined to the avian, but also include the floral and the
insect kingdom.
On the drive down the gravel road from the park to the "farm to market" road, I passed a field of kid goats, grazing beside an emu. Emus are not among our north Texas native birds, but they, like llamas, have a sort of vogue in the countryside now. It's a bit curious to me, but between me and you, what's an emu or two?
On FM 36, a stand of Indian paintbrush flowers was in bloom--quite early, it seemed to me, but I was delighted to see them. Men were wading in the nearby Lake Lavon as I drove by, also fishing.
Last night was another night of scissortail flycatchers....I think of them as quite unique,
but they are Oklahoma's state bird and hence must be somewhat ubiquitous. Similarly, the eccentric odd zebra longwings I loved near Biscayne national park (and our local Lake Ray Roberts) are
the state butterfly of Florida. I am constantly learning arcane knowledge which I treasure as
being a mystic secret, and then read about in
World Book Encyclopedia. OTOH, World Book was the key to my childhood's alchemy, so it all circles round nicely.
and feel every tremor of a potential fish on the end of the line.
I stopped in Princeton, a small town on Highway 380, to pick up worms, hooks, a hipper bobber than the one in my tackle box, and a bit of beef jerky [note:when I finally capitulate to a more moral vegetarian lifestyle, will need to lobby for tofu jerky or cherry jerky...whatever happened to that farmer in Michigan who was trying to market cherry sausage?]. When I got to the Prairie,
a HUGE white heron was hanging out by one of the two ponds.
He flew to the bank between the two ponds, and stood looking about, regal,wary...in a while, he flew away altogether, loping slowly, feet dangling down.
I rigged out my rigout and began to fish. Within moments, fish were biting. I soon caught, and released, seven sleek orange-breasted sunfish
and a small but not tiny bass. It's so much easier to catch fish on a cane pole, because the sensation of the strike is so immediate.
After an hour, I had caught enough fish, so
I began to hike the prairie trails. Flowers are popping up all over--little yellows and blues and purples. Other flowers are not quite in bloom, but hover, waiting. The temperature was
in the high 60s, and will head to 80 today.
It's amazing that just a month ago I was housebound due to sleet. Still, the trail was a bit damp, and I passed dozens of crawdad (crayfish) mounds. A congregation of birdwatchers, the only other park occupants,
gathered a fair distance off as if in worship around a tree. I tended to use my cheap French ebay binoculars for butterfly watching more than birdwatching. My saints are not confined to the avian, but also include the floral and the
insect kingdom.
On the drive down the gravel road from the park to the "farm to market" road, I passed a field of kid goats, grazing beside an emu. Emus are not among our north Texas native birds, but they, like llamas, have a sort of vogue in the countryside now. It's a bit curious to me, but between me and you, what's an emu or two?
On FM 36, a stand of Indian paintbrush flowers was in bloom--quite early, it seemed to me, but I was delighted to see them. Men were wading in the nearby Lake Lavon as I drove by, also fishing.
Last night was another night of scissortail flycatchers....I think of them as quite unique,
but they are Oklahoma's state bird and hence must be somewhat ubiquitous. Similarly, the eccentric odd zebra longwings I loved near Biscayne national park (and our local Lake Ray Roberts) are
the state butterfly of Florida. I am constantly learning arcane knowledge which I treasure as
being a mystic secret, and then read about in
World Book Encyclopedia. OTOH, World Book was the key to my childhood's alchemy, so it all circles round nicely.
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un question, s'il vous plaites
Date: 2002-04-13 03:50 pm (UTC)how is it one can give in to being more moral lolol by being a vegetarian... and still go fishing? you throw them back? you don't think they feel pain? you only buy the vegetarian thing with regard to mammals?
just curious :)
i liked the story very much, for various reasons, not the least of which was the mention of the encyclopedias... i have three sets myself. the most sophisticated i own are the encyclopedia brittanicas... i love how they used the same type of paper for the pages that my first bible had.
i'm realising that i'm going to have to part with them soon, it's silly really, to keep them because i don't have the storage. i like the opportunity to read things from a point of view that they were recorded in the near past though... it's always interesting to me to observe how phraseology, and perceptions, change.
bummer i will have to give them up. my other love of junk manifests itself in a collection of old art books. containing drawings or lithos of the artwork rather than photos of the real thing. i like the photo books too, but something about the re-representation of art gives a book a lot of charm. and of course i never tire of reading the commentaries of art. i don't suppose i will part with those until i'm homeless.
Re: un question, s'il vous plaites
I love those Brittanica pages, too.
It's indoor plant books that are my "got 'em for a dollar at the used book store and now they're everywhere" books. I'd rather read about the exotica plants than raise them. Cheap cactus for me....
no subject
Date: 2002-04-13 03:55 pm (UTC)Do you emu?
It did not pan out, ostriches are still curios (though on a drive from LA to Texas I did pass a HUGE ostrich farm in the desert a few years ago).
In roughly this same time frame, the emu was touted as having all the advantages of ostriches and none of the disadvantages. They didn't pan out either as a food crop, but as a curious animal that folks loved to keep they caught on.
They are more concentrated in the hill country of south Texas, which is climatically much more like Australia, but they also are kept in the
more variable north Texas area as well.
It's an odd thing, emus, and it was surreal seeing an emu grazing in a field with tiny goats.