ALERT: Special Christmas Present Opportunity (from you to me)

I'm sorry I didn't bring this special opportunity to your attention earlier, but I've been busy.

I know most of you haven't bought me a Christmas present yet. I'm sure it's just an oversight; I've got a few more to pick up myself.

To save you all the trouble and bother of the malls, I've found the ideal gift for you to leave under my tree.

Trout Run.

No, not that charming town in Pennsylvania but rather the faux Camp David located in Thurmond, Maryland. And it's only $9 million. If all my readers chip in and do their part, that's only $3 million each and if they tell a couple of friends, well, you could make me happy for a whole lot less on a per capita basis.

This property has everything I'd need to make me happy:

• Gates to keep out folks who read my blog riffraff and poaching scum
• A tired, old rustic looking house for me and my family and a limited number of you whom I actually like as long as you keep your visits short and ply me with extravagant gifts.
• A bell which I'd ring in the early morning as a way to encourage hangers-on, dead beat relatives and riffraff who got past the gates to move to quieter places that aren't owned by me.
• A shuffleboard court (or whatever you call the place shuffleboard is played). I've never been on a cruise and now I wouldn't have to go on one just to play shuffleboard. My kids could practice and get shuffleboard scholarships to elite universities.
• "a two-mile trout stream running through the property" upon whose banks I could start a private club force feeding rainbow trout with trout chow and charging my personal friends upwards of $80,000 to catch them.... wait a minute, I think that's already been done.
• Several small streams at which I'd hold small stream conclaves and invite all the small stream blogger brethren and sistren to so that we could fish and dance and sing and play other reindeer games.

Hold on, I just clicked on the realtor link and it says the property is no longer for sale.

One of you must have bought it!

For me!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I can't wait until Christmas morning!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!*

*Regardless of whether you contributed to this wondrous and generous gift or not.

Conan! What is best in life?

The boys and I watched the original Conan last night. A classic.

Tomorrow a new Conan movie arrives. It's like remaking Caddyshack. There's no way it will compare favorably. I don't know why they bother.

The answer: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Wood ain't Fish.

Two hours of work got us half way on one tree

Split, stacked firewood. Very satisfying. It's the promise of a hearth crackling on a winter weekend. Book in hand. Sunday Times piled on the side table, spilling onto the floor. already read . Perhaps a nap on a Sunday afternoon. It's difficult to see all this on a dank, sweaty August weekend when you're turning two foot and occasional three foot oak and hickory rounds into something that'll burn.

Friday evening and Saturday morning Chris and I wrestled wood to the splitter and Ann and Sam stacked it. There's still more to stack and even more to split the result of five trees that were felled by professionals earlier in the week.

My body has assisted me in identifying certain muscles that I've not exercised properly in the recent past. There's this one on the outside of my right forearm that aches quite acutely. It's sole purpose appears to be for chucking split wood onto a pile. I haven't done that in some time. It apparently needed the exercise. There's also a handful of little muscles in my hand that seem to have an equal purpose.

The tree service took these trees and created an industrial accident. Cylinders of wood with raw ends piled as if a dump truck just delivered a load of piping that needs to be buried to serve some purpose.I find it very satisfying to split wood; to clean up the accident and turn those jumbled pipes into something useful.

When I was younger I used axe, maul, wedges and the like to get the job done. As recently as five or so years ago I enjoyed such tools. But something's turned during the past couple of years (my age, most likely) and now a hydraulic splitter seems the ticket. Though it doesn't relieve one of all the physical labor it sure helps.

Chris and I settled into a rhythm on the machine. We'd alternate the wood manhandling and the machine operating. At fifteen he's starting to fill out and was an able hand at all the physical tasks. I must say that at first I was somewhat hesitant to be the log loader while he worked the hydraulics but he took the job seriously, understood the dangers and we both finished the task with all body parts attached. It's very rewarding to see the boys grow into men. Especially men who are capable of helping with the hard work.

We got through about 20% of the wood on the ground. The big trees remain. No rush. This winter's wood was split and stacked last year so we'll get to the rest of this when the weather turns cooler. The tree in front of the house is gone which was the one we really needed to get done.

The weather on Friday evening and Saturday morning was perfect for fishing. Overcast. Cooler though still muggy. The local waters were a bit low but I had taken stream temps during the week and they were still fishable; especially at the ends of the day. I even saw a few splashy rises while taking those temps. Sunday evening, chores finished, would have been a nice time to wet a line.

But my aching muscles and general weariness kept me from the water. Sitting at a desk all week doesn't prepare you for eight hours of hard labor despite working out a few times a week. I now fully appreciate why a buddy gave up the landscaping business when he was in his thirties. The body bounces back slower and slower over time. I can mow the lawn. Trim the hedges. But any activity that requires more than 50% of my muscles to work at a single time over extended periods is no longer prudent.

So, no fishing this past weekend. Hopefully I'll make up for it come Thursday when a window opens in my work schedule. I hope to fish the Farmington with Jon and Don.

Not caught this past weekend

Night at the Park

Last week was action packed and I'm going to deal with things a bit out of order. Monday evening, the 4th of July, great evening on the water with Ross and Seamus. That's not this story. Fast forward to Wednesday night -- Boston Red Sox vs Toronto Blue Jays, fourth row behind the dugout. My Dad. My two sons. A perfect summer evening.

Wally

Changing Pitchers

Youk!

It was the perfect way to see a game. Great seats. Enough action from both teams so that it was always a question of exactly how things would play out. A rally by Boston in the bottom of the 4th to put enough breathing room in the score that the fan's confidence was bolstered. Rain delay. Watching the ballet of groundskeepers covering and then uncovering the field. Seventh inning stretch. Sweet Caroline. Then, I'm shipping up to Boston. Papelbon closing things down with three strikeouts.

Quick Sips

• I renewed my stack of fishing and hunting licenses yesterday. I fish regularly in Connecticut and New York with occasional forays into Massachusetts. That requires a stack of permits (and $s). I bought the CT license a few weeks ago when I fished the Farmington but had yet to get to the others. Online license sales are a godsend given that it isn't easy to buy a license in three states no matter how small those states are. Of course, the states are concerned about false statements in these documents given that no one is sitting inspecting your ID. Massachusetts takes the cake for best warning about false statements:
  
  

  

  A couple hundred dollars of licenses

  By clicking on the 'Enter Sales' link, you swear under the pains and penalties of perjury that the information in your customer profile is accurate.
  
  "Pains and Penalties of Perjury!" That sounds serious. But my first thought was, "Who talks that way?". Of course this is the "Commonwealth" of Massachusetts and I swear I saw folks wearing those goofy Pilgrim hats the last time I fished the Deerfield River. They probably still use the stocks for punishment.

• He's Back! The Unaccomplished Angler returns to document future unaccomplishments.
• Fresh Coffee in the woods. Its a dream. A mirage. A fable. I've eyed the Jet Boil device in the Eastern Mountain Sports store a few times. It's probably one of those toys that would never see the light of day. But damn, fresh coffee streamside....YUM. . Reviewed over on Arizona Wanderings. 

Sanity. Losing it rapidly.

In my daydreams, I am an awesome roll caster. The rod accelerates in just the right manner that I can shoot thirty or forty feet of line with ease placing the fly in the intended spot with just enough slack that I get the perfect drift to a pod of rising trout.

I'm good at this cast because I've fished one particular spot so many times in my daydreams that I've had much practice. I've learned from my mistakes -- accelerating the rod tip at the wrong time, not getting the line properly set-up at the beginning of the cast. I've also learned to overweight by one line size to get optimum performance from my favorite five weight rod. You get the idea. I'm no longer making rookie mistakes.