New Chapter

Today begins a new chapter for me. After long years in the world of employment I have turned off all my alarm clocks and tossed my hat into the ring of the retired. It was time to reclaim my life. For years I had a long bucket list in a corner of my life waiting patiently for me to come to my senses. It is time to begin work on that before there is no more bucket and no more me 

I cannot say it is the end of my career because I never actually had a career. I wish I had, if a career is a calling, but instead like so many of us and for whatever reasons I followed the wooing of wages ignoring the nudging of my spirit urging me toward endeavors for which I was reallly created. It was just a job and something I had to watch like a junkyard dog to make sure it didn't bite me. 

I heard most of my life that the way to riches was the use of other people's money. After six plus decades of watching many of the unexplainable wealthy I decided that was a simple red herring to conceal the truth. It's not other people’s money but your allotted time here on earth,  "other people's time", that is an all too frequent  vehicle to untold and unearned wealth. That time, your very life, is the most valuable possession of humankind, a tiny unique flash, all your own, against the background of an unfolding universe. Somehow along the way through human history we have allowed it to become cheap labor for the expansion and profit of commercial empires. If somewhere in all the minutiae of enterprise you can find a niche that you can truly proclaim is your calling, then more power to you as long as your gain is not at the expense of others. For the rest of us it is time we consider, ever so carefully, what we leave on the table when we exchange a substantial piece of our finite and only life for simple wages.

North Texas Fall

North Texas foliage has erupted into stunning colors this fall. Everywhere leaves are turning into golden hues or rusty reds. Each day brings a fresh patchwork; new tones blush with less and more magnificent autumn color shouting out “look at me, look at me!”. Some say late rains and an early freeze are responsible for this year’s lavish display. I say it happened just as Mother Nature wished. Soon harsh artic winds will strip the trees of their autumn adornments and they will sleep naked through the winter until the earth once again nods toward our sun, signaling the beginning of the next grand awakening. I was born in the fall. If I'm lucky I will leave then as well.

North winds

My chimes are ringing which means the wind has turned from the North and we are about to get another welcome taste of autumn. High gloomy clouds give up a fine mist that dances on the wind like it is happy to be here. It means cooler temps, many multi-colored leaves that will need to be raked, added to other preparations for cold weather but most of all a chance to be comfortably outside and become a part of the changing season. Maybe a walk in the park to watch and listen to the first of the leaves give up their host and settle to earth where they will spend the winter transferring their sustenance to the soil and its denizens. Like the mist today I'm happy to be here.

Rain at last....

Thanks to Mother Nature combining moisture from both a tropical depression on the East coast of Mexico, and a hurricane in the mouth of the Gulf of California with a cold front from our Northwest, rain prayers of many all over Texas were answered. Water, what would we do without it? Someday, soon I'm afraid, as population growth puts more and more pressure on that much taken for granted resource it will become the most valuable and much contested commodity in much of the West and Southwest. Such extravagant uses as maintaining hundreds of acres of manicured golf courses will come into question. But enough of my disdain for gluttonous water guzzling golf courses, along with the much needed rain came some welcome cool air just in time for the first day of Fall, perhaps my favorite time of year. The cooler weather marks the beginning of the fall bite in many of our local lakes, colors the landscape with golden and crimson leaves and sets the stage for the year end holiday season. Happy Fall y'all!

Backyard Raptor

Green Anole

I was sitting on my backyard deck yesterday when I noticed a young Green Anole about four inches long crawling slowly along the cross bars of my tomato stakes. "Hello lizard", I said. He stopped at the sound of my voice and rolled one eye in my direction. "You're safe here", I told him. At that both eyes rolled in what seemed all directions checking for a lie in what I had just told him. In a moment he seemed confident I had told him the truth. It was still and quite on this morning and the Anole's eyes moved only at the sound of my voice or when my Brittany Spaniel danced across the deck chasing her own phantom sounds and smells. The lizard sat on its perch and I on mine enjoying the cloud free, September dawn. Suddenly the little lizard's tail raised skyward and began to roll out, back and forth, like a fly fisherman false casting in pursuit of a rising trout. It was a graceful but impending motion and after no more than three or four cast of its tail the Anole, eyes focused intently forward, pounced a full body length on what next appeared to be a lady bug now bulging from the tiny lizard's extended mouth. The instant I saw the bug I knew where I had seen that same attack pattern before....Jurassic Park and its ominous raptors. Perhaps those story tellers were familiar with this antic and had incorporated it in their script. Perhaps all lizards do this, but it was a first for me and a joy to behold. I thanked the little Anole for showing off in front of me.

Christmas Trout

Christmas Rainbow Trout

Christmas Eve was spent on the river catching up on some much needed trout fishing. I had actually planned to fish Christmas morning because none of the kids were coming home this Christmas and since they are all out West I could easily fish Christmas morning and be home in time to connect with them Christmas afternoon. I was sure to have the river to myself. Every time I checked the forecast it was worse than the last. I decided freezing temps with wind gust up to thirty miles per hour was too much for an old fisherman regardless of how bad I wanted to be on the water to shed some pent up stress baggage.

As Texas would have it, however, when I checked the weather for Christmas Eve, conditions were forecast to be perfect. A Christmas Eve trip began to take form. I might not have the river to myself, especially since the weather was going to be so much nicer than Christmas Day, but if I fished in the evening instead of the morning that might improve my odds for uncrowded waters.

I stopped in Mineral Wells for lunch then drove on to the river arriving about two. There were a few vehicles parked at the bridge but when I got down to the river I saw only a couple of fisherman downstream and a father and young son across the river fishing the pool just below the bridge. I made a few cast there but decided to leave that pool to them and move above the bridge where I thought I had seen a few rises. The flow in the river was good which was a Christmas blessing because it had been a trickle at 20 cfs for the past week. It's difficult to do a dead drift presentation if you can't get anything to drift.

Sure enough there were a few fish rising about fifty yards upstream of the bridge. I caught three or four of the ten inch hatchery trout drifting an emerger pattern beneath a dry fly. As usual once I declared to myself that I had the trick for trout that day they quit taking my offering and I had to search my medicine bag for new magic. I think the fish gods do that to punish you for patting yourself on the back. Anyway I decided a Griffith's Gnat might be in order and they loved it.

I have heard some of the elitist fly fisherman talk down to fly fisherman that fish for the hatchery trout here in Texas and I agree it's not as good as it gets but how many of us can afford to fly off to where the fish are wild and... are wild fish in these remote places that maybe have not ever seen an artificial fly really that much harder to catch than a trout raised in a hatchery...maybe, maybe not. The hatchery trout serve to keep my skills honed and keep me in tune with the equations that equal fish in the hand and they get me outdoors where my soul can breathe again.

This trip had the added bonus of giving a couple of youngsters their first lesson in fly fishing. They left with a limit of trout and a father thankful enough for the assistance that he asked for my name twice and offered me a beer and a cigarette. I declined but thanked him for both and wished him a Merry Christmas as I waded back across the river under my red and green Christmas hat.