Persephone's Peripatetic Piscine Pilgrimage

Happy Saturday! It's a sunny, COLD spring day, with a strong wind and temperatures rising to a glacial 4 degrees celsius here in the People's Republic of Connecticut. Sephie here, with the Dad-Lackey, trying to keep things from getting too chaotic in the absence of the Mom-person, who is teaching a workshop in the nearby Emirate of Cape Cod.

Naturally, his Eminence insists on jumping into the Trout-mobile, even though the probability of any self-respecting salmonid showing itself on a day this cold is roughly the square root of negative one. He says it's a "scouting expedition."




Okay, Scottie, give me Warp Drive and let's get this over with...



Now where the heck are we? He says this is Comstock Bridge. Bring on the horses and buggies!


Pretty gloomy, if I do say so. No wonder all those Puritans dressed in black and displayed dour countenances.




So this is the Salmon River! Whoop-de-doo! Maybe I'll find a muskrat to chew on...



Now how oxymoronic is that? How can you "manage" something as wild and untamable as a trout?



All right--not a bad looking river. I give it a "six." No fish around, though--they're all deep in the bottoms of the pools making fun of the hypothermic fools standing in water cold enough to stop the heart of a walrus.


My human fish-geek says that flyfishermen are solitary creatures. They avoid crowds, conversation, and noise. The sound of a caddisfly hatch excites them. If another person steps into the river a half-mile downstream, they move on.



That's pretty perplexing to us Kerry Blue terriers. Life to us is about companionship and ear-licks and loud conversation and doing EVERYTHING in groups of three.


Dad just stopped in his tracks, jaw dropped in horror! He's hyperventilating.



This doesn't look pretty. KAYAKERS!


Kayakers are the antithesis of flyfishermen. They're gregarious, effervescent, and always talking! Kinda like terriers, 'cept on water.


They LOVE getting together and planning things! Bread and circuses! The Dad-Servant concedes that it's important to share natural resources, and some of his best friends are kayakers...but he's now running upstream, into the deep woods, and dragging me with him!


Henry David Thoreau was a fisherman, not a kayaker.


Okay, it's pretty up here, but it's insufferably quiet. I'm just going to start barking at small rodents until the Dad-Lackey takes me back to the car!



That's a bit better! We can listen to the radio until we get back to civilization and my dinner.


That was a long afternoon. But he made up for it by getting a rotisserie chicken for supper, and Dad-Servant and Daughter-Waitress and I each had some. And then I took my nap!

Have a great weekend,

Persephone

Easter Comes to Planet Kerry Blue...

We love Easter!

There's always something really pretty waiting when we wake up.




Special things for the older folks;



Special things for the almost-older folks;



And special things for US!!!

Miss Bailey especially likes working over Buster's new goose!

Have a great week,

Persephone

Miss Bailey Escorts the Dad-Servant to See a Sleeping Giant and Observe the Taeniopterygidae Hatch

Oh, Bother! The lunatic humanoid has forced me into the PT Cruiser for another strange encounter with wild things.


Okay, I'll have to pretend I'm enjoying this... We're headed down Route 10 toward Deepest, Darkest Hamden. Maybe I'll be missed, and they'll send out a search party!


Funny name for a chiropractor...Cheshire's an odd place.


Okay, so where's this "Giant?"


Oh... The Dad-Lackey expostulates that native Americans were cursed by an evil spirit called Hobbomock, who stamped his foot so loudly that the Connecticut River changed its course. A good spirit named Keitan cast a spell on Hobbomock, causing him to fall on his back and go to sleep forever. This probably isn't the best view of Hobbomock, but you can sort of get the idea...



I knew it! One can't go anywhere with the Dad-Servant without ending up near the water. It draws this living font of atavistic human tendencies like a moth to a blowtorch.



The Mill River! Okay, it's kinda pretty, but why is this lunatic hyperventilating and uttering strange words in Latin again?


And you expect me to walk on this alleged trail? He's mumbling about "basalt" and "terminal moraine." Something about the Wisconsin Glacier forming this river valley 15,000 years ago. I don't see any polar bears!


Human-Lackey says that this is called a "riff." The same word works with rivers and jazz.


I'll just rest here on the foundation of an ancient dam and act queen-like for awhile!


Nature-boy is uttering incantations to the silver birch. If Buster were here, he'd autograph it.


Hemlock, says the servant! I think I smell the ghost of Chipmunk Past!


Dang! This stupid river just goes on forever! I'd really rather be exchanging ear-licks with Buster-boy or getting some attention from the girl-humans. How far is this possessed Neanderthal going to make me walk?



Spring run-off. High water. It could carry a little dog like me downstream for miles. Dad says it's full of brown and rainbow trout.


Here's a more peaceful stretch. Why are we stopping here?


More incantations in a dead language! Dad-Servant says that this is where the Early Dark Stoneflies are hatching! Taeniopterygidae! Can you see them? I sure can't!



My human tormentor is quick to point out the precise location of one particular example of family Taeniopterygidae. Whoop-de-doo!



Here's "Blue," my new buddy! He's a puppy, but he's rather big! I asked him what sort of dog he was, and he said he was a "bull." No horns; I'm confused!


The lunatic Dad-Lackey had to pause to gawk at something called "lichens." I wonder if they're edible--I'm hungry!



Okay...he says this is the end of the trail! I can't wait to get home and lurk under the dinner table while they eat chicken.


So long, Mr. Giant... I hope you stay asleep for awhile.

Your faithful correspondent,

Miss Bailey Blue

the Challenge.... narrated by Ms. Bailey Blue

ok! here it is..."THE whippet CHALLENGE", from Noah...so I guess it is now, "the AIREEEDALE challenge"! and soon it will be known as the "Kerry Blue Challenge"
uh....just read on, I've confused the issue (mebbe that's where theBUSTER gets it)---
continue on ------------------------->Hi "blog-friends"
...Ms. Blue here, coming to you from the humomm's studio!
It's a bit chilly here, we don't usually come here in the winter--Kerries do love
their warm beds.
But our-buddy-down-under, Noah, has issued a challenge to us...
to get our humans involved in something CREaTIVE! This one human is always
involved in something creative.
Well maybe you'll see something you've never seen before.
pssst....the humomm is an art person and
she decided to show you something realllllly important --
that would be
US! the 3 musketeers!
in the snow.


BUT, we will be in WAX!
she works in encaustic ....
which is WaX w/pigment floating in it.
She fires it up with an itty bitty torch
(she's got a really big torch
that she melts metal
with and it also keeps things warm whilst working...
but that's another story for another day).

here are some of the pots of COLORed WaX.

MESSSSSSEEEEE WaX.

HOT WaX...

she said I, ME, the Bluezeeee, could not help because the WaX would get into the blue
HAIR and yUck......so anyhow..

she takes panel...that's made of birch faced
plywood and makes it nice and smooth. Then she puts a base of BEE's WaX ---->that's what she calls ME, Ms. Bee!
Bee's Knees, Ms.Beezer!
Sometimes these huMomms are so
very strange.
Well then, now she's got this piece of wood
with a whole mess
of bee's WaX slopped on it.. and toasted with
the little bitty TORCH.
It's already to paint MORE wax stuff
on it...and it's looking pretty minimal <----that's an art term! then she slops some of the white










WaX encaustic on it,
that's hot and liquid----->


Did I mention it was HOT!
well it is...when it gets cold it gets hard again... so the itty bitty torch is taken out one more time to make it "not hard".
Warms the space up a bit...torch, hot plate, hot WaX...
So the white stuff is
slopped onto the
panel...and heated and...well -- between you and me... it's not exactly what I, ms. Bailey Blue, the Mom of theBUSTER & Ms. Persephone, expected.

I was hoping for something that looked more
like us... PLAYING... maybe in the SNOW????

OK says the humomm... back to work.
I guess these things take a bit of time to do---------->

Now she's scraping and heating and painting some more... mumbling something about "let it snow let it snow let it snow...!

HAH! there it is...ms. Persephone (flapping her mouth at theBUSTER) and me, Ms. Blue trying to keep order....we are The Three Musketeers!
and she got us in WaX! "Kerrys, playing in the SnoW!"
Hope you like our solution to the CHALLENGE...
We would like to Challenge some of our other Blog Buddies, starting with ------------->
THE GOOBETTE (ms.Stella) & Stanley...(that means their girl needs to be done with the thesis! hurry hurry gurlie), Molly & Taffy, ms. Putter and HARRY & Ms. Cassidy, the aireeedle Ms. Faya.
The following information is from Noah's blog...
This is the "how to's of theCHALLENGE.

1. Make something, anything. It doesn't have to be complicated or artsy. Make a list, take an interesting picture, make some one's day, make dinner, make a doodle, make fun of yourself, make a poem, make your bed (OK, that last one is lame).

2. Write a blog about it. With pictures for extra brownie points.

3. Link to this blog and challenge six other bloggers to do the same.

Best of Luck ,
Ms. Blue