Fish day! and other signs of life

A lot of people around the country and beyond are thinking about the carnage in Connecticut, as am I. But two events this weekend reminded me about the persistence of life as well.

Today, Dec. 16, 2012, was officially declared Fish Day at Goat Rope Farm. By way of explanation, during the winter, spring and early summer, the creek that runs by our place is teeming with minnows, crawdads and such. But the dry spells of late summer often dry the creek totally up for weeks or more at a time.

After a while, the water returns. Shortly thereafter, aquatic insects do the same. But fish usually take a while. Fish Day here as occurred in February but sometimes as late as April. For some reason (would that it was an omen of good tidings), it came early this year. This morning, I caught a glimpse of a solitary minnow but didn't trust my eyes. I thought I saw it again this afternoon but waited until seeing it again this evening before calling it.

Life goes. But it also comes back.

The other reminder was the December ritual of planting garlic, the only vegetable I seem to get along with very well in the gardening arena. In a time of year when much seems dead, putting perfectly good garlic cloves in the ground seems like a total waste. One expects them to molder and disappear, but they tend to sprout up in spring and grow to maturity in summer. Life out of death again.

I'm reminded of a Springsteen lyric from the song Atlantic City. You may well know the one.

LINK TRUCK BROKE DOWN

As goes the creek...

There are any number of ways to assess the state of the world. One measure I use that is entirely personal and arbitrary is the state of the creek that runs through the yard. As goes, the creek, so goes the world. More or less.

When it is flowing continuously and full of minnows and crawdads and such, all is well or at least more tolerable. When it is dry and lifeless, as often happens in late summer, the world at large seems the same way.

It's not that things are all that great when it's healthy; it's just that things seem all that much worse when it isn't.

Sometimes when the creek goes dry, it can be months before minnows show up again, even after the water comes back. When that happens, I check each day and usually celebrate the first arrival of fish. (Search this blog for "fish day" and you'll see what I mean).

I am pleased to announce that although it ran dry recently, heavy rains earlier this week restored it for now anyhow and somehow minnows have reappeared from whatever isolated holes they were surviving in.

All of which is to say that there may be hope for the world after all.

MAKE THEM. Here's a proposal for reviving the progressive agenda.

OH REALLY? Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry recently suggested that there was no broad scientific agreement on climate change. Here's a bit of fact checking.

ABOUT THAT WAR ON COAL. It doesn't seem to be going well, since mining employment has actually gone up.

URGENT THINKING ELEPHANT UPDATE here.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. I really screwed up and reversed the key words in a metaphor about gold and silver in yesterday's post. My bad.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Fish day!

We interrupt Goat Rope's regularly scheduled programming to announce that fish have finally returned to the creek in front of the house. For a good chunk of the year, that little creek, fed by two smaller ones, is home to a good number of minnows and crawdads.

In the late summer and early fall, as noted in this post from last September, the creek often goes dry. The dryness doesn't last too long but it takes the fish several months to come back. Last fall, we even scooped some out of the remaining puddles and put them in the pond where, if they didn't survive, they'd at least make a nice meal for a snapping turtle or two.

Every day after the autumn dry spell I make a point of checking the creek for fish, and have decreed Fish Day to be a holiday at Goat Rope Farm (here, for example is the official announcement from two years ago, when they didn't arrive until April). The little fellows officially arrived yesterday, on Feb. 11. Here's hoping they stay all year.