Slate Run visitors
I must have been too damned busy, and had too much on my old tin plate. After tying a bunch of Pheasant-tail Nymphs, I lost them before they could be anchored in the fly box.
The nymphs were scattered to the prowlers in the house, to the dust bunnies, cats, and ravenous vacuum cleaner.
millipede
In this busiest time of year, with all of the outdoors exploding with new life, I had too much to do, and needed to regroup.
I’ve got a lot of flies to tie. The lawn needs mowing. You know how it goes, with all that planning in your head.
stone fly on a rockpile
Most of us can afford to slow down a bit, even if it’s only from some hyper non-activity on the couch. So I try to take a bigger inhalation of the dying lilac blossoms, try to peer through the columbine’s comb, and do whatever it takes to slow down the rapid passage of time.
soft-hackles
Please note the pauses taken between each captioned photograph. They come from the expanding spaces of my previous two weeks. Each of us has comparable images remembered from recent days. Enjoy them before they’re gone.
reminds me of tiger trout
columbine
waterfall at the house
Rivertop Rambles 
Gorgeous! Is that waterfall physically at your house?
Thanks Jim. I can stand in one corner of my yard and nearly reach the falls with a good pitch of a rock (or I could have done that 20 years ago!).
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Time to re-invigorate; it’s truly the “sweet of the year”. Had a great day Tuesday when I had to take the kid to Clarion for her job, ran up to Cook Forest SP to do a little fishing on the Clarion River and hiking on the Baker Trail/NCT. It was a magnificent day. Yesterday, I went to Chapman SP and did a short trail run in between the torrents. Suffered nothing more than wet feet, burning lungs, and a renewed spirit.
Sounds good, Bob. How’s the Clarion fishing? I’ve sampled the East Branch, but that was it.
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That is a slice of heaven indeed!
Thanks Jim. We appreciate it.
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That’s a short but sweet post. Sometimes when life has you too busy, you just let some good pictures speak for themselves. Are the columbines from Slate Run or closer to the house?
Thanks Junior. Yeah, those columbines are wild ones here, across from the barn.
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Walt, the section of the Clarion I was fishing is right by the park boundary, and it’s really good smallmouth habitat. Regretably, I don’t know the river as well as I’d like to. The East branch is OK, very intimate, but dependent on stocked fish. The upside of it is that it’s very cold, rarely exceeding the 60 degree mark, and keeps the rest of the system tolerable for trout. The West branch is marginal, and holds the dumbest fly fish only section in the state, maybe in the country for that matter. You can only fish from the right bank, which is overgrown, no wading. It has to be seen to be believed. Speaking of seeing and believing, while fishing Kinzua Creek tonight, I saw something I’d never seen before. While watching the slate drake spinners over the riffle I was fishing, a hairy woodpecker swooped down and snatched a spinner from the air. Then about a minute later, he darted out of a stand of spruce and grabbed another! I wonder if he has an identity crisis, and thinks he’s a flycatcher or waxwing?
Thanks for the Clarion update. As said, I fished the E. Branch once, in a season so hot and dry, that the Branch offered the one of the only fly fishing opportunities for trout in the entire region. I liked it, and had some success, despite the limitations. That West Branch sounds like a weird set up for fishing. Doubt I’ll ever wind up trying to figure it out. As for the birds and flies, I’ve never seen a woodpecker go for the rise! We think of these guys hammering wood for grubs, but hey, why not? Those big flies must be irrisistible. Recently I watched catbirds and yellow warblers doing the same, and last night on the Genny, the usual waxwings for an amazing yellow stone fly hatch.
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Great advice on slowing down. Sometimes life just gets too busy and we actually have to find a way to slow things down.
Thank you, Mary. I think half of it is the simple recognition of the need to slow down and take stock. The rest of it is the means. For those of us who take their cues from nature, it can be a simple matter of opening our senses and breathing deeply.