Gardens at the University of Maryland

I don't remember the name of this park, but it may well be my favorite.

As opposed to the above which is a little out of the way, this statue is in the heart of campus:

 

This shady rock garden is known as Woods Hall Garden:

 

 

I'm very fond of the Chapel Garden:

 

 

The next three are outside the Rossborough Inn, the oldest building on campus.

This final shot is near the Armory:

 

...and there are many other gardens on campus.  The landscaping crew does a nice job.

 

 

Bluegills are spawning

Their circular spawning beds were quite distinct on the west side of the pond on the far side.  I was a little surprised because it's later than usual, but it probably wasn't their first spawn of the season.  Caught a few then decided to leave them alone.

Farmers' Market

From Spring until late Fall, I routinely go to a number.  Last Sunday, it was the Takoma Market Farmers' Market where I bought some sausage for the grill.  Also put some tomatoes and green peppers on the grill that afternoon because I'm interested in cooking more vegetables outdoors.

Night baseball

Considering how much I like the game, I've been to too few baseball games in recent years, but I hope to correct that this season.  Last night I enjoyed watching the Nats beat the Reds.  The food, beer, and being with friends added a lot.

Prior to this game, Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto had been the most effective in MLB.  Here he is warming up in the bullpen before the game:

He pitched well until the 6th inning when the Nats jumped all over him for 7 runs.

 

The presidents' race is always popular with the fans:

 

 

 

Star-of-Bethlehem

 Genus Ornithogalum, but I prefer the biblical common name.  Although they don't last long,  I look forward to seeing them pop up each Spring.

The sky and the water

Because multiple lines are used for spring trolling in the Chesapeake, you spend a lot time watching the rods for a strike, and your field of vision includes a lot of sky as well as the water.

Here's Capt. Billy Pipkin assisted by my fiend, Capt. Dave, setting up some of the 16 rigs we used yesterday:

We left the dock at Ingram Bay at 6 AM and immediately headed north up the Bay.

We turned into the Potomac and spent most of day opposite Georges Island on the Maryland shore.  We returned to the dock 8 hours later having caught our limit: 

Seven fishermen and seven good fish.

First trip on the Bay this year

After having a couple of trips cancelled because of stormy weather or boat repairs, I finally got out on the Bay today.  As well as myself, Kenny Wells invited Donna and Kirk who are old friends of his:

The weather was nice and some good rockfish fell for Kenny's trolling rigs:

 

Kenny and his 25 foot Parker fish out of Chesapeake Beach. 

 

 

So far this season

More or less in this order, I've caught the following species of fish:

Blue catfish
Striped bass
Brown trout
Bluegill
Crappie
Rainbow trout
Largemouth bass
Hickory shad

The last one came from a trip to Fletchers Boathouse on the Potomac last Friday where I hooked about a half dozen shad in two hours of fishing with a spinning rod and landed all but one.  One of the fish was quite large and may have been an American shad rather than a hickory.  I should be better than I am at distinguishing between these species just as I should have been able to determine whether the crappie was a white or black crappie.  When I'm releasing the fish, my priority is getting it back in the water without harm rather than close examination to determine exact species.

"Did you have a nice time?"

As long as I've fished, the most common question one local fisherman asks another has been, "Have you done any good?"  As I was leaving the Patapsco River downstream from Daniels Friday, I passed another fisherman who was just arriving, and he asked, "Did you have a good time?"

The only other person who often asks that question after I've been fishing is my wife.  It could be that I was sullen long ago after an unsuccessful outing and responded angrily to an innocent inquiry as to whether I caught anything, and she decided asking if I had a good time was safer.

At any rate, it's a better question and yes, I done good.  Caught a nice rainbow trout on a yellow crystal bugger.

Greg in concert

He moves too fast for a slow shutter available light shot.  His band, Burning Shadows, sounded good tonight at the University of Maryland.

Insect Order Plecoptera

Commonly called stoneflies, these aquatic insects spend most of their lives underwater in what's called the nymph stage.  To undergo their metamorphosis to the adult stage, they make their way out of the water onto rocks or trees where they sprout wings.  For mating, the males make a drumming noise (the beat goes on) by pressing their abdomens against the leaf or ground or whatever they're standing on in order to attract a female.

However, sometimes they find themselves perched not on a rock or a leaf but a fisherman who is standing in a stream near the shore in search of trout.  Such was my situation on Friday on the Little Patuxent.  The momentary annoyance about having a bug crawling on my chin was offset by the realization that this stonefly hatch would be of interest to hungry trout, and sure enough I soon spotted a rising fish feeding on them. 

I've caught trout on this and other streams in early Spring in exactly these circumstances, but not this trip.  I tried three or four casts to the spot before the fish stopped rising and I had to head for the car to travel home to get ready to go out on the town with my wife.   Even though I didn't catch anything, it was worthwhile to witness again this natural cycle.

Last snow of the season?

Hope so.  Hell, it's supposed to be Spring.

A black wooly bugger

That's what I used to catch two trout on the upper Patuxent yesterday.  Started the day going downstream from Howard's Chapel Road, but got caught in the rain without my rain gear.  Walked back to the car to get the rain gear and eat lunch and decided to drive further upstream to Hipsley Mill Road.  Both fish were brown trout, one six and the other nine inches long.

Water level was 2.5 at the Unity measuring station.

The confluence of two streams

The Little Patuxent is on the left and the Middle Patuxent on the right.  I took this picture on a hike Thursday.  On my doctor's recommendation, I try to walk at least a half hour daily.  Because of bad weather I've missed some days recently, so I got in a lot of walking that day to make up for the missed days.

First fishing trip of 2014

On Saturday, Col. Andy, otherwise known as Ski, and I booked a trip with our friend Capt. Mike Starrett for some cold weather fishing on the Potomac River just downstream from the Nation's Capital.

The main catch were blue catfish:

 

But we also caught a few rockfish:

 

Here's the big guy,  Andy, pulling in the best fish of the day, a 40 pound catfish:

 

 

 

We got in the trip just in time because it snowed again  Sunday night.

Positive end to a frustrating basketball season

Watched Maryland end 61 years in the ACC with a win over Virginia who was ranked number five in the nation.

Before the game, some of the big names in Terp basketball history were available to sign autographs, but we didn't feel like standing in the long line.  However, I did sneak through to get a shot of Gary Williams:

 

I was happy for the victory and also that the students finally got an excuse to storm the court when the overtime ended because they had been waiting for a big win all season.  I didn't wait around to get a picture though, because we were eager to eat.

 

 

We're all expecting more wins like this next year.

 

 

 

Tiefest 2014

Coming to the end of a long, hard winter, I'm looking forward to warmer weather and fishing.  One annual break from cabin fever is the local fly fishermen get-together, Tiefest.

Fly fishing legend Lefty Kreh is always a big draw.  I've watched his casting demonstrations many times but never tire of them and always learn something.

He often remarks that women are much easier to teach than men.  "I can teach a woman to cast in about a third the time it takes to teach a man," he says.  Then he adds, "As long as it's a woman I'm not married to."  At 89 years old, he's truly amazing.

 Lefty's especially eager to introduce children into the joys of fishing:

Another celebrity in the fly fishing world is Bob Clouser who invented the famous Clouser Minow:

 

Most artificial flies are tied not as exact imitations of natural foods but as impressionistic depictions that fool the fish because of their life-like appearance and behavior in the water.  These salt water flies depict baitfish:

 

 

I'm tired of snow pictures...

...I say as I post some more.

 

This main purpose of this blog has always been as a journal of what I do (and sometimes what I think), and snow has been dominant in my life for the past few months. Ironically, last year I realized that in documenting the looks of the house and yard in various seasons I was lacking in snow scenes.  In response, I made certain to get out and take some photos the next time it snowed because it may be our only snow off the winter.   Well, we had a few other minor snows that winter, and each of them was diligently recorded.

 

This year has been quite different.  I've lost track of the number of snows and have felt no such responsibility to photograph them since the blog no longer lacks snow scenes.  Nevertheless, snow has been what I see, so inevitably snow has been what I photograph lately.

 

 

 

 

So much for Spring...

It has snowed off and on all day but there really wasn't any accumulation...

...so I took a walk in the park.                     

First Sign of Spring?

Crocuses in our yard:

 
 

                                  



 (Croci is also acceptable as the plural form.)

Snow again

About 10-12 inches Wednesday night and then a few more last night.

 

Went for walk and surprised a deer in the woods.

 

 

Of course, I really didn't need to walk to the park to see deer.  A few of them have been hanging out in the side yard lately.

 

 

Not too visible in that picture, so here's a closer look at one of them:

 

 

We're supposed to get a little more snow tonight.

 

 

 

Cold Winter

Temperature hasn't been above freezing since Monday, and most nights have been in the single digits.  Still walking in the park every day though.

In the center of the picture above, the Canada Geese are swimming in a circular area of unfrozen water.  Below is a better view of that area.  A few days ago the surface was completely frozen over, and I'm uncertain about what caused this part to open up.  It hasn't been because of any warming trend because there hasn't been one.

The Golden Age of TV

Lately it seems I've noticed a number of articles using this term. From what I gather, the idea is that the success of The Sopranos has brought in a wave of evening adult dramas which like afternoon soap operas have an on-going story rather than standard series 1/2 hour and full hour plot.

We weren't getting The Sopranos when it first showed because we didn't have HBO, but we got the DVDs from the video store (remember them?) and did what is now called binge watching. I liked it very much and watch the reruns more often than I should on HBO which we now get.

We are big fans of Mad Men and look forward to every new season.  Breaking Bad, of course, was widely acclaimed by just about everyone it seems, but we didn't watch it. I caught many episodes a few week ago when the network ran them consecutively, and I understand the popularity.  I like Boardwalk Empire and think it's especially good visually, but Pam doesn't watch because of the violence. Same goes for Sons of Anarchy which I watch once in a while.  So far, I like this new series, True Detective, and Pam also watches.

I don't know whether this is TV's Golden Age or not. For me the Golden Age may have been in the late 50's and early 60's when there were a ton of Westerns. At the time, they suited me fine.

 

The Pond, January 14, 2014: 5 PM

Neil Young looks back

A cliché about the 1960's is that if you remember them you weren't there.  This always struck me as not only untrue but confusing because it implies that the notorious substance use of that decade would have wrecked the memories of the participants.  Maybe so if the substance was alcohol, but the dominant drugs of the sixties were marijuana and LSD.  Like a lot of us, Neil Young discovered marijuana in the sixties, and he continued using it until recently yet remembers most everything.

His memoir is casually conversational, and at times he speaks directly to the reader in a stream-of-conscious manner.  He mentions once that the sequence of the songs on any of his albums is important to him, so I assume the sequence that he recounts his life is likewise deliberate.  It certainly isn't chronological.  It probably also isn't an oversight that he doesn't furnish an index, something I find useful in any nonfiction, but he may have decided an index might encourage picking and reading subjects at will when he wants to reader to go through the book in order.  My initial reading was slow because I sometimes put it aside to do some reading for my classes, not because it was ponderous.  Indeed, it was a fun read, and when I completed it I went back to the beginning and skimmed back through it.

Neil Young strikes me as a sincere man who is honest about his faults. When he tells about first driving from his native Canada to California with a small group of young men and women, he describes deciding with another traveler to abandon the rest of group without warning.  He doesn't express any guilt over this, but a few pages later he recounts a conversation with fellow musician Stephen Stills years later in which they discussed the concept of loyalty and the conflict with the drive to be continually moving forward.  He also admits to avoiding confrontation many times in his life.

Young's life has not been entirely one long hippie joy ride.  Since childhood, he has been beset with serious health issues, and the health issues he has had to deal with regarding two of his sons have been daunting.  By many accounts other than his own, he has faced these issues with courage and persistence and has been a loyal and loving father and husband for over thirty years.  He continually expresses love and praise for his friends and family and has very few negative things to say about anyone.

The reader hears a lot of detail about things of importance to Young:  guitars, model trains, cars, but ultimately it's the music, always there in the background when it isn't the dominant subject.  I think I'll listen to some Neil right now.

Decorating and un-decorating Christmas Trees

I like decorating Christmas trees, not just because I like the look but because it means the beginning of the holiday season.  Like last year, Lucy found her way into the annual tree photo. It seemed like all the cats enjoyed hanging out beneath the tree, more so than in the past.

 

Although I don't look forward to taking the tree down, I know they tend to start looking pathetic if you keep them up very far into January and this knowledge provides incentive.  This year, I decided the sadness of taking it down can be further offset by considering the un-decorating of the tree as the completion of the holiday ritual.  Just like the Olympics, we have both an opening and a closing ceremony.

Holidays and Death

Shortly before Christmas I met for drinks three guys who I had once worked with.  Although I hadn't seen most of them in at least five years, we easily re-established our rapport, and laughter and banter flowed as readily as the beer we drank. 

A somber note arose as the recent death of another co-worker was discussed.  None of us knew his age, but we estimated it as late 50's or early 60's.  As the conversation continued, the others mentioned their ages which ranged from the late 40's to the mid 50's, and as they did I realized that I hadn't known their exact ages until then although I could have guessed each one fairly accurately.  Other names were mentioned of co-workers who had died because even in death they were part of the same bond. One of the guys also mentioned that he had recently lost his mother.

As we parted everyone said they had a good time, and it was suggested that we get together more often.  As I drove home, however, I reflected back and thought there was a certain sadness in the gathering.  This could be a misinterpretation, I realized, because unlike myself the others were still working and were busy, successful people who may have just been understandably tired or weighed down by their responsibilities at work and home.

The event has caused me to muse about the end of year holiday period and death, and it seems like an obvious time for people to think about mortality even though it is out of sorts with the jovial seasonal expectations.  After my brother died one mid-December, someone mentioned that a death so close to Christmas was especially difficult, but it was hard for me to think another time of year would have softened the blow.   For me, anniversaries of deaths are not necessarily significant because grief can hit anytime, sometimes long afterwards.  Yet I do think there's something about the end of year that causes many of us to remember those no longer with us.   After all, the traditional New Years song, "Auld Lang Syne", suggests recalling past times with old acquaintances, and these could be both living and dead.

That evening I reread the James Joyce story "The Dead" from The Dubliners, and I decided Joyce had reason to set the story at Christmastime:

"There are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here to-night. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavours."

However, just a few hours after the main character speaks these words, he discovers that a song has rekindled a memory of a lost love for his wife which she cannot escape brooding upon.  As he gazes out the hotel window at the falling snow, he ponders not just the death many years before of this young man but of all of the dead both before and after.

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn

"...Duh poor guy! Say, I’ve got to laugh, at dat, when I t’ink about him! Maybe he’s found out by now dat he’ll neveh live long enough to know duh whole of Brooklyn. It’d take a guy a lifetime to know Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo. An’ even den, yuh wouldn’t know it all."

This weekend we made our third trip to Brooklyn in the past two years. I don't hear that accent anymore that Thomas Wolfe caught in his short story written in the 1930's that is quoted above.

My daughter Rebecca met us at Pennsylvania Station in the snow, and we walked along the Highline on the Westside of Manhattan to Chelsea to visit her husband Sean at work before having lunch in the West Village. Then the three of us took the subway to Brooklyn where my daughter and SIL live in the Crown Heights neighborhood. We stopped so that Pam and I could check into our hotel in downtown Brooklyn. The first two visits we stayed with them, but that apartment becomes a bit crowded with four adults and two cats.  It was nice and cozy, though, for hanging out Saturday afternoon watching the snow and waiting for my SIL to get off work to go out to dinner.

Below is Rebecca, Sean, and Pam in front of the Brooklyn Art Museum where we went on Sunday after brunch:

 

The facial features on the people in the museum exhibit are actually digital projections, so they blink and change expressions, and some of them speak.  A video would have captured this.

 

 

   Then Pam and I got on the subway back to Manhattan. At home I studied on-line maps to get a sense of the new places we saw which are just a small chunk of the big area that is Brooklyn.

The woods are a winter wonderland

Alliterative title although not completely original.

 

 

Between Poetry and Science

When outdoors I'm not inclined to quantify.  I often say about catching fish that I lose count after three, and although said jokingly it's generally true and comes from this disinclination.  Since most of my fishing is catch and release, counting and measuring fish to comply with laws is generally not an issue.  When I plan to retain my catch it's usually on someone else's boat on the Bay, and because captains are conscientious about fishing regulations they keep track of size and number of fish without depending on the anglers.

In the business world where I worked for about 40 years, I quantified in order to make and justify decisions.  Time, money, output and other variables were tracked and analyzed constantly.  Doing so was an ingrained habit for me at work, but outdoors I behave differently. If I were a scientist systematically expanding our knowledge of nature, I wouldn't have this freedom.  A book I recently read, Why Birds Sing by David Rothenberg, contains a passage which describes this difference:

"The response of nineteenth-century naturalists to bird song falls somewhere in the valley between science and poetry.  A  naturalist spends long hours paying complete attention to nature, not to conduct experiments or derive a satisfaction in certainty, but for the sheer pleasure of awareness.  To look, listen, and learn, and to come home with that kind of knowledge that is closer to acquaintance, to gain a familiarity with the world of birds, to share in their experience, not necessarily to explain it."

Between a scientist and a poet seems like a comfortable place whether the focus is birds or fish or anything else in nature.  One accumulates data to test a hypothesis, and the other obtains inspiration for his art.  Those of us in the middle are free to experience the Now.