Portland’s Repurposing and a Wet Butt

Oh you just know I love Portland’s repurposing efforts!!! Such benevolence! Yes, I have touched upon this before, but as I drive to work each day, I am struck by the worthy practice of dumping your stuff at the curb to best benefit your fellow man/woman. Such is the continued feel good, misdirected, self indulgent practice of putting furniture, bedding, clothing, you name it on the curbside because….well, it hasn’t a damn thing to do with taking care of your ‘community’!!!

Look, look…even record breaking wet shoes too!!!

Something so appropriately ‘green’ about this repurposing!

Fly Tying: Sparse Emerger

Photography: Wet Lens

There are a couple givens re Western Oregon weather: November’s end will see relentless downpours causing the rivers to rise over their banks…and, the end of May into June will once again beg downpours. Then that window of weather bliss will ensue through October.

Fly Tying: Starling and Pheasant Caddis Pupa

Pattern/Recipe: Size 16 nymph hook, Size 8/0 olive thread, 3/32 brass bead, olive rabbit dubbing for abdomen and thorax tapered, pheasant tail barb tips for antenna, 1-2 turns of Starling hackle for wing and small amount of dubbing around thread wrap area behind bead head.

Photography: Nature’s Lattice Work

Memorial Day (Decoration Day) Remembrances

“Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.” (more)

Fly Tying: Sparser Dressings Provoke

Over dressing a fly pattern abdomen, thorax and wing is easy to do. The temptation is to do this because visibility of the fly is increased…life like appearances might be enhanced…the shape may be more realistic.

Tying sparser (much like tying on smaller hooks) is a leap of faith for many. Here is a nice review of the sparsely dressed Flymph patterns at Bakslengen (Vegard Jønnevald).

Stillwaters really test your faith in smaller patterns, once one gives up the comfort of Woolly Buggers and the like. Here my wife plays a nice stillwater trout that took a small, sparsely dressed wet in the film during a Chironomid (Midge) emergence.

My patterns above, although quite productive, are over dressed in comparison to some of the sparser dressed patterns that do attract a fish’s attention. Skinnier bodies, one turn or less of hackle and fewer thread wraps produce a sparsely dressed fly that does produce.

Photography: First Light

Early Morning Sage

Early Morning Dogwood Blooms

Early Morning at the Crypt

Early Morning

Photography: Here & There

My Dad’s Old Saw, 15 years after his death.

Off the beaten path, near a rail yard.

Paris Flat, Christmas Island; one foot of water almost forever.

Uplifting

Room with a view.

False Spring…False Promises

Oh a few days of high 70’s and low 80’s and people were half naked in Portland. The False Spring was, once again, upon us. The definition of False Spring does not do justice to the phrase.

“False spring is a term used in botany (and related fields) rather than in meteorology. It refers to a period of weather in late winter or early spring sufficiently mild and sufficiently long to “trick” dormant vegetation into waking up early. Young, succulent tissues begin growing at a time when the plant should remain dormant,” and it can then be damaged by later frosts and freezes. False spring temperatures rarely affect native plants, but ornamentals are quite vulnerable.”

No, it is now late Spring, not early Spring!

Today, May 22, 2012….False Spring Indeed!

“False Spring”? This is more like “Ha! Screw You Suckers!!!”

Of course, having lived in Portland my whole life, I know not to worry about dependable sunshine until after Rose Festival in Mid June. Then we are good to go until mid October!

Ah, hope Springs Eternal…even amid the battered blossoms and blooms. Thank goodness one stops to see the roses…so to speak.