When my parents decided to move to the Ozarks, they told us of all the fire flies and wild animals we would practically be living in our backyard, the forests, rivers, ponds, lakes, and camping. To a couple city kids, that sounded like paradise. Well, to these city kids.
It sounded mystical, to live in a forest where it would rain and snow and hail and have silky mist drifting over and through the hills, as well as actually be able to see stars in the night sky. Where it would storm and have real lighting, and thunder that could shake you house. A magic place.
Those were my thoughts of where we live now. To a girl who had grown up in the blazing hot, dry, dessert-like place near Fresno CA, that's what the "Ozarks" was.
And still is.
When we arrived it proved to be all I thought it was.
A tiny disappointment about fireflies, though. I had thought that they would be steady little lights. Instead, they are little blinking lights.
But, lo and behold, I discovered that they are much more beautiful as flickering lights. In the evening of a warm spring, it is almost easy to believe in fairies. It is no wonder they were invented by imaginative and appreciative human minds.
At dusk fireflies will will gather in the billions, all across the open pastures and collectively around the ponds, and light will wave and flicker from one side to the other as you watch. Much like sea waves.
Many times we have wanted to capture the sight for our friends and relatives that don't live near us, but we find that no camera we own can assist.
So we must simply wait for them to come visit us. ;)
One thing that interested me very much, which was not so possible where I had lived before, was fishing. I had gone once with some friends and my mother when I was about six or seven, and we fished for trout. I caught seven. Believe it or not.
Since then, I wanted to fish.
But there was no place for it.
The place I'd caught trout was some hours away, and I could only go if someone would drive me there, being incapable of driving my six/seven year old self.
After that venture, I would get out my fishing pole and fish in the carpet in mom's living room.
I caught many things.
A couch, lots of carpet fuzz, shoes, and stuffed animals that were difficult to unhook. Sometimes the carpet fuzz would be so obstinate to be pulled up, that I lost hooks to it.
Which I got in trouble for, of course. That was all when I was seven. And I'm sure I remember sneaking my pole and doing the same when I was eight, only in my own bedroom.
Well, carpet fuzz wasn't enough, so when we moved to the Ozarks in a house with a pond right in back, I was fishing in it the next day with a stick that I broke off from a near by tree, and I believe some yarn for line. And a safety pin for a hook.
My old fishing pole never made it on the trip with us.
Shortly after that, we moved to another house. Much bigger, with a pool, ( that is now a duck pond,)
and a basement, and a real chicken coop and barn. But cooler to me then that, was that it was on the same road that a Saddle club was. And, it came with a pond. There were also two larger ponds in front of the house. So, I went fishing. But it took me two years to learn how to really fish and actually catch something.
Not carpet fuzz.
Real fish.
In those two years, my siblings and I discovered other ponds, through our roaming in the pastures and forests around us.
I checked out books from the library, and learned from trial and error. No one in my family could teach me just what I wanted to know, and all my friends here had fathers or grandpas that took them fishing every once in a while, and taught them, if they wanted to learn.
Perhaps I could have asked if I could come with some of them, but I suppose I was too shy to ask.
Never the less, I learned. I taught myself. Through observation, a great teacher in my knowledge of fishing, I learned what different signs on the water meant. There were different kinds of fish, and I came to know all that swam in the ponds around my house.
I also learned, how to tell if a pond even had fish in it.
Two of the ponds I used to fish, for hours in the evening, when my family first came to live here, were only home to frogs, ( there is a type of frog that only lives in abundance where there are no fish.)
It took me a while to learn that.
Now, I am considered an expert by my family and friends. I bring home fish every time.
From of course, the ponds I have learned to know.
And now, Keys I have found.
1. Observation
2. Perseverance
3. Patience.
4. Books.
The next post I will be discussing about these keys. ;)
