Monday Morning Hunch
Some days you just have to hunch over the keyboard. This is one of those hunchy days. Potentially the best weather of the week is today, and it’s a little too early to hit the ground running. The sun’s about to come up, and again this year; not a single trick-or-treater bothered with our poor neighborhood, a neighborhood populated with grumpy old folks and irresponsible renters. Who would blame them for not showing up again?
Last week the wind did blow, and I spent time thinking about the people who came west, what? 170-years ago … imagine that wind on the open range, herding cattle, or riding a prairie schooner. On and on it blows, mind and body numbing wind that just does not stop. Now THEY had it hard. We just rake and blow the leaves and pick up the branches, and go back inside and wait.
The stillness that followed those days of wind were beyond the strangeness of the wind. I think I could finally hear my ears ringing from the days blown by, a low grade thing … time to check the blood pressure probably. The distance from 50-mph wind to zero is huge, and the silence reminded me of being in the eye of a hurricane (yup, been there, done that).
FORWARD: FALL FIX
After a painful, early end to carp season, geek-like focus on a problem I don’t stand a chance of solving (Denton Trinity Greenbelt), building and shipping a lot, A LOT of fly line mats, it is about time to get back to the simplicity of seeing that fly roll out.
It will be the Texas Gulf Coast next week, a rare treat in my current reality. And now with gas pump prices passing $3-dollars in North Texas? At least I live in the most expensive region of Texas when it comes to fuel prices! Anywhere, but here, is cheaper – a fact made clear by the roundabout trip we did October 22-25, from here to Wimberley to Houston.
But once the salt trip ends, I will be right back here trying to figure out what comes next on the local scene – the local fix. It could be:
- Texoma – Lake striper action
- Red River striper – a brand new can of worms
- Blue River Rambling – extremely reliable, and ver good escape. How about BLUE on BLACK this year?
- BendBow – I wonder just how bad Beaver’s Bend really is? We’ve all heard the stories, but VERIFY!
- Fill in the Blank – What do you have? What’s your fall fix here in North Texas?
SALT on THAT?
One of the benefits of going to salt is; the more you go, the easier it gets – to go. It’s difficult to explain the gear shifting that happens when salt is the destination. It’s actually different in every hardware way, and the abuse salt delivers? It never takes a day off. Regardless of the abuse the Texas Gulf Coast delivers, the Gulf is an ocean of great stories about people, places and fish. And I am thankful that the tide is rising, at least on the first two of those.
DENTON GREENBELT DEBACLE REACHES NEW PHASE
I continue the coverage of the Denton Trinity Greenbelt Debacle, with a look at the newly reopened HWY380 Greenbelt Park. Not only do I continue to cover it, once these reports are put to bed (shown to you), I continue to think about what I don’t know about this Great Debacle at the end of 2021. There’s so much to learn.
Currently, I am trying to get to the bottom of “who leases from who” along this stretch called the Greenbelt. My original reporting was that the City of Denton was the originator of the leases, and then those were leased out to TPWD for this “access.” Now that it is time to actually see the leases, apparently that reporting is inaccurate. Before year’s end, we will also be looking under the hood of the Denton Greenbelt Alliance, an organization dedicated to the trails – human and equestrian – along the Denton Trinity Greenbelt. That website says,”The Board of Directors is made up of Greenbelt neighbors whose land was purchased by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the Greenbelt’s creation in 1995.” A purchase is not a lease. The plot thickens, or my head does …
Category: Blue River, Body-Mind-Soul, Causes, Denton Trinity River Greenbelt Corridor, Destination Fly Fishing, Life Observed, Science and Environmental, Texas Gulf Coast, Texas Water Conservation
