outdoors
Karl Seckinger
Karl "Trout Whisperer" Seckinger is an outdoor enthusiast and resides in northeastern Minnesota.
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I look through the glass window panes and I see its snowed overnight. Oh lord, I need boots and gloves and should I start hauling firewood, plowing, shoveling, it’s a what to do first thought. New snow, new work load.
I bundle up, open a door to it, it, it’s cold, so I close the door tightly and turn to meet snow. And like the magic the snow has performed in my yard, it somehow performs instantly in my head.
I wasn’t really ready for a new dawn, a new day; I was ready to get all cranked about the work. And poof, it’s so quiet outside I don’t move a muscle.
Today it’s so early I can be a little cocky and call it predawn. I like the earliest part of every day the best and who knows why but I’m just struck by such a feeling of, Soundless. Yeah, no sound what’s so ever? It’s so rare to actually try and listen, yet hear absolutely nothing.
I feel the snow falling. No wind. Whiteness has again refreshed or recovered everything I see. It’s not even fair to think about moving right now. I don’t want to mess up the moment with me possibly creating noise with one of my boots scrunching in the soft snow. I stand in complete, total, silence.
Across my driveway a stand of balsam, how ironic in the early morning, the view is but black and white. My bird feeder has a new fluffy roof. My garage looks like a gnome home. It’s a shame to think I have to plow my driveway and shovel the walk.
So do I move, or just take it in for a few more minutes before its gone. What if a big plow truck drives down the county trunk, what if a chickadee, dee, dee, dee’d me into today.
Now I wonder about something, anything, disturbing what I’ve come to know is my silence. It’s a good thing the snow can’t hear what’s whirling around in my head. The trout whisperer
After several days of no new flakes held at bay by brilliant blue skies the suns heat hits my roof. The old windblown snow takes on the appearance of candle wax working for the soffits. After two clear days I notice stuff outside because im not a huddled bundled frozen blob.
Two days ago at the peak there were no exposed shingles, today I have a green bedraggled shingled line slowly appearing.
A day without clouds after so many grays is an awaking, heck, my roof even notices. Two days of it has my trigger finger pretty itchy. The sun came out outside and turned my furnace back on in my insides. It’s cold, but with the sun and blue it’s not as mentally cold perhaps.
I could do all kinds of stuff but I think I’m going to work on some vitamin d and just sit still. I load the perch bucket and one hand cranked ice auger.
At the public access I park.
I slowly fill the towable sled and a hiking I do go. I like when the snow is firm over the ice. When it’s soft like hiking through warm sand, it wears me out to quick. And at my age I don’t need to be worn down to fast. I don’t grind holes in the ice like it’s a race and today I know it’s going to require some serious grinding to get my twenty perch. Slowly and steady will get me there.
The first three holes gave up fish, but no keepers. The next eleven holes gave me half a bucket. When I turned around to see all my little snow mounds I could see where that hole was a good one, that one wasn’t, and from under the ice a pattern shaped like a donut with a hole in it started to emerge so I played drill a ring around the fishing hole and finished the limit. Its days like this with sunshine blue sky and more fish then I can handle that make winter so wonderful, So much fun.
It’s not bad on days like this; it’s actually the great part of winter. Today it’s not the dangerous roads, the storms, the blizzards or frozen fingers. Today, it’s that entire magical winter wonderland Hans Christian Anderson, Walden, Muir and Longfellow had me believe. And today it’s so simple, it’s just me, and I believe. The trout whisperer
In 1917 a British soldier named Desmond Morton was shot right through the heart. An amazing thing is, he not only survived his war injury, he lived until 1971 with the bullet still inside him going on to leading a rather distinguished life.
Saint Augustine, and pardon me if I don’t quite get the quote right, passed on a bit of wisdom, telling of fire’s action, proving gold, and fire’s action, consuming the chaff. How fetid water aroused, would refresh the vile stench, and perfume aroused, would release wonderful aromas.
Winter is here and in my part of the world I would say it’s been on the mild side. Tame, manageable cold and a friend and I decided enough snow flakiness. My buddy has one full length leg and the other do to an injury is missing below the knee.
Tent and gear loaded in a poke. Menu selected, axes sharp, attired in wool and wonder to wander into the mild winter we did snow a-go.
My buddy loves to cuss so I left him to tend to the tent. I like to make my own noises so with firewood in mind, off with an axe I was deadfall and down, bound.
Duluth pack of popple kindling, one sled of Norway pine half logged and I can tell you my red wool shirt was wide open. I got back to the tent and it was taught tight shut.
We split some soup, and then wood and I mean lots of wood until the sun started to set. With a belly full of warm dinner I found my bunk and hunkered in.
My buddy was wrestling his sleeping bag and a wool blanket on the other side of the tent and telling me about trying some fishing in the morning because he thought we had plenty of firewood to last the next three days.
Anything after that was left to the night because I slept like one of those frozen logs outside, I didn’t move.
In the morning the first thing I thought was it was cold. I didn’t hear any snoring. It was dark. I asked if he was awake. No response.
I got out of the only warmth I had and kicked the coals alive in the stove, stoked it full. Just as I shut the stove door, he said thanks. I borrowed one of his cuss words. The trout whisperer
Day thought, cut firewood
Night thought, sit by fireplace
Day thought, make breakfast
Night thought, eat dinner
Day thought, make bed
Night thought, in bed
Day thought, plan future
Night thought, dream one night away
Day thought, sit in sunlight
Night thought, walk in moonlight
Day thought, make a new friend
Night thought, visit with old friends
Day thought, paddle to a fish
Night thought, fry fish
Day thought, hike
Night thought, oil boots
Day thought, fly fish
Night thought, tie flies
Day thought, feed birds
Night thought, wood roast chicken
Day thought, wool shirts
Night thought, fleece pajamas
Day thought, get it done
Night thought, the day is done
Happy New Year …..The trout whisperer
There are some remarkable thoughts written on paper, paper, made from trees.
…{“.For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone”}…..Hermann Hesse ……So I wonder if Hermann equated this to preachers at the pulpit preaching to the choir of human families… so to speak?
……{“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”} ― Mahatma Gandhi}…….. Did Gandhi ever say anything that wasn’t right on the mark?
……{“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. “} ― William Blake}……ah my good old Mr. Blake, a glass half full, or a log in the fire?
……..{“When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear”…..Maya Angelou}… Maya and that age old riddle, if the tree fell …would anyone hear it, her answer seems to me, yes.
…..{“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson} ………..quite a bit of hope in that short ode.
……{“A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree.” Spike Milligan}……it’s so ironic, a bit of a health tonic and would come from the man called spike. Something we nail into trees.
…..{“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship.” John Muir} …oh brother John could certainly see the forest for the trees.
And finally….“{To be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy.}”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés,…………
I think next spring, I’m gonna plant more money than I will ever spend. The trout whisperer.
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