Filed under: Listen | Tags: 4th of July, America, Grateful Dead, US Blues, Wave that flag
“Red and white/blue suede shoes
I’m Uncle Sam /how do you do?
Gimme five/I’m still alive
Ain’t no luck/I learned to duck”
Wave that flag, wave it wide an high! Happy 4th!
Well I have been pretty busy with other wild projects as of late…actually really only one project, this little man. All those cliches about having a kid, well they are true. But I haven’t abandoned the WildWood, we will be back and more frequent starting soon enough. In the meantime if you want you can find us on Instagram #WildNoah. Hope y’all are having a grand summer.
“It took A.K. to teach me how to make real camp coffee: bring one pot of lake or river water to a rolling boil, add two palmfuls of generic coffee, and remove the pot to the edge of the coals. If it’s the breakfast pot, throw in the eggshells. When it’s done (five to ten minutes), add a splash of cold water to settle the grounds.
Like whiskey, it should be drunk from a tin cup.” – John Gierach, Camp Coffee
Re-read this essay last night… looking forward to summer time and hopefully some smoky camp coffee.
45 years later…
February 2, 1968
In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
-Wendell Berry
Filed under: Angling | Tags: Christian Horgen, fiberglass, fly fishing, fly rod, Sweedish
I recently came across these fine creations on a daily read of mine and they were just to beautiful not to repost here at WildWood. Christian Horgen, a Sweedish architect and father, builds custom fiberglass fly rods. Each one is a unique creation inspired by classic American fly rod designs. There many more examples of his work on his website and blog, here are just a few tasty examples. Oh what I wouldn’t do for one of these rods!
Filed under: Outdoors | Tags: beginning of the world, December 21st, winter solstice
Happy Solstice folks. Get outside, get weird.
Filed under: Listen | Tags: Appalachia, Daniel Bachman, drone, fingerpicking, guitar, Jack Rose, John Fahey, Thompson Square, virginia
In the spirit of John Fahey and carrying the recently dimmed torch of Jack Rose comes Daniel Bachman, an acoustic guitar player from the from our home state (the great commonwealth of Virginia). Bachman plays a style of fingerpicking – drone that weaves together deep mountain melodies and complex rhythms that can honestly be called “Pyschedelic Appalachia.” Perfect for a fall afternoon, his most recent album “Seven Pines” just came out on Thompson Square Label.
Filed under: Angling, Fly Fishing | Tags: autumn, brook trout, brookies, fall, fly fishing, Rapidan River, virginia
Got out this past weekend to do a little early autumn brook trout fishing. Nice weather however not yet cool enough that one doesn’t work up a sweat trekking around in waders. But that’s OK I just moved a little bit slower up through the stream and over the rocks. There wasn’t much of any hatch on the water or a whole lot of activity in general, most of the brookies were more concerned with getting their gravel beds ready for spawning. A few fish were willing to bite and entertain me, and I want to thank them for their kindness because otherwise I would have been standing in that stream waving a stick simply for the pleasing view.
Filed under: Angling, Fly Fishing | Tags: fly fishing, Raymond Carver, The Current
These fish have no eyes
these silver fish that come to me in dreams,
scattering their roe and milt
in the pockets of my brain.
But there’s one that comes–
heavy, scarred, silent like the rest,
that simply holds against the current,
closing its dark mouth against
the current, closing and opening
as it holds to the current.
-Raymond Carver
There are still some days of summer light left… make sure you get out and fish.
Wildwood 