So in between, let’s see, I never mentioned that two weekends ago we stopped at Cabela’s in Scarborough to get some fly tying supplies. For some reason I was early leaving work, we were at exit 42 earlier than usual, and it was getting close enough to fishing season (open water fishing, that is, not ice fishing, which I still am not into) that it seemed to make sense. It turned out that they were having a 30% off sale on all fly tying stuff, so I lucked out. I got some really good grade dry fly hackle, Whiting farms, a small package that’s supposed to have enough for at least 100 flies. In contrast to Frank Perdue, who breeds chickens for the best meat production, Whiting Farms selects for feathers that make the best dry flies! Roosters grown specifically for their feathers. It sounds goofy, but the feathers from one rooster will sell for over $100 (and that’s all at once. In small packages like the one I bought, I bet it could add up to $500 or more!) That’s a lot more than Perdue can get for one chicken. Of course, the market for dry fly feathers is a lot smaller than the market for oven stuffers.
Last weekend I warmed up for fly tying by putting snells on a few hooks. That means tying a short length of heavy fishing line to a hook and tying a loop in the other end, so you can clip a snap swivel onto the loop of fishline rather than trying to clip to the hook directly. It’s a start.
Sunday of last weekend was a meeting of the Maine Jewish Artists group. One guy showed several of his pieces, found object assemblages which have a lot going on and are probably more meaningful when he explains them than if you just saw them in an exhibit.
Then there was a lot of discussion, especially about what amount of outreach we wanted to do to get people from all over the state to participate — something of a problem, since everyone there was more or less from the Portland area, and some other parts of the state are pretty remote. The group would like to be welcoming and supportive of people from The County, but we don’t really want to have to have meetings far away very often!
We wanted a picture of the group, and I had my camera in the car, so I did it:
We didn’t do much on Sunday except get up, clean up the house and drain the water, and go to that meeting. After the meeting we found our way to the Audubon Gilsland Farm sanctuary, but didn’t try to walk around — it was late and the ground was snowy. We stopped in Portsmouth for supper at the big Japanese restaurant, Sake.