Mother's Day

I’m laughing because I was blogging two days behind and now I’m three days behind! So I’m just going to catch up. Little to no philosophy. And no “oh I work so hard” stuff either.

I got the best Mother’s Day present. They all acted so nonchalant about it, I thought they had forgotten and I just had work planned out, what to try to get done that day. And I was cool with that. But when I came in from milking, I was presented with this card by my children and in it the money and instructions to go get my fishing license so we could all go fishing. And I was off!

The nearest store is about 15 miles away. It sells hunting/fishing licenses, is a game checking station, has a stock of basic hardware, plumbing materials, electrical do-dads, beer and a deli. By the time I got back, the tackle was checked out, the worms were contained, drinking water & sunscreen put in a backpack. We have our own personal stocked pond. Not really. It is in the National Forest about a mile’s very pleasant walk through the woods.

And this day the walk was incredible. Tennessee iris are in bloom all over. I think they are supposed to be rare but they aren’t rare here. And three colors of violets. The creek was too high to rock hop safely so we all just plunged in and waded the two fords. It was COLD. And even on a holiday Sunday, no one but us was there.

The bass laughed at us all day, swimming back and forth in the shallows eyeing us and our lures and asking, “How do you think we got to be this big? By biting onto hooks? I think not!” But we got enough bluegill for a good mess, eventually. Nothing all afternoon except those laughing bass and a few snakes slithering around.

I am not a fishing Goddess. Fishing is rather new to me. But I’m really intrigued by it. It is a fun excuse for a day off. And you have the likelihood of getting a free meal out of it too. It is an optimists pursuit, always the next cast might be it.

But the coolest thing that day was the otherworldliness of it all. It was all in the light on the water. Standing in any place around the pond, one minute you could see bass swimming back and forth, and the next, there was nothing but the surface of the water, and the next, sky reflected, and the next, a school of small fish in the middle of the pond, and the next it was clear to the base of the cattails to the right, and the next, the bass almost at my feet was visible again. It really was demonstrable of how we see into the different realities, not all at once except for sometimes that reflection of sky, so clearly you swear you could reach out and touch it, only for it to be as an illusion the next moment. Instead, all of it is real, and useful, but the bass is not part of the sky and it can all get confusing sometimes too.

About those bass . . . daughter #1, Ms Persistence herself, actually psyched one of the creatures out. It was in a clearing in the cattails and close enough I wished I had the butterfly nets to just catch it with. Husband dangled everything in front of it, and I caught a small fish to tempt it with to no avail, but it was daughter who dangled a worm in front of it, and dangled it, and dangled it, and the fish would think about biting and think better of it, and she just patiently dangled it some more and finally, the fish could stand it no more. And became her hero portion when dinner was served.

I’ve taken it rather easy yesterday and today -- catch-up housework, making wildflower cards, laundry. And doing some marketing of our garden produce we now have available -- magnificent salad mixes with 7 kinds of lettuce, two kinds of spinach, plus a sprinkling of flavorful mizuma, satsoi, arugula, and the like. Getting over one of those inexplicable doom and gloom moods. I do not know how, sometimes, fear takes over a heart and you just have to stand against it, feel it fully but refuse it nonetheless.

Oh, and we had a wonderful Mother’s Day Fish Feast, although it was Monday before we had the energy to fix it. After it was headed, gutted and cleaned, it was nearly 3# of fish. Add fries and slaw and hushpuppies.