Tieing Flys

For my Dad 

I am very much my father's daughter.  If there was something new to learn or something looked like it would be fun to do (within reason...no marathon for either one of us) my father was all over it. Tennis, hiking, camping, trains, photography, violin, keyboard, painting, boating, woodworking, just to name a few.  His favorite part was to "acquire all the accoutrements" (his words) needed for said project.  He was a gatherer!  One of his later adventures was fly fishing.  He had the waders, different poles, the jacket with all the pockets to hold all his gear but what he really loved to do was tie flies.  And that allowed him to acquire even more with this one hobby, score!  After many outings he finally caught a fish!!!  He held it up proudly, Mother captured the historic moment and all was right with the world until the picture came out of the printer.  He is standing tall, arm up in the air, with a big grin, but the fish was so small and blended in with his jacket that it cannot be seen in the photo. It is framed and predominately displayed on the bookshelf...which my father built.  With this piece, when rocked the casting line comes to life and the fish wiggle about. The fly in my piece is one that he tied.  We lost him 6 years ago in April and I miss him dearly.

A note on camping:  To go camping once and only for one night you need 2 months preparation, 2 trips to campground with all stuff needed including but not limited to a HUGE tent, a hand built wooden kitchen area with electric hookup and running water ( he was extremely proud of this), cooking supplies and food to cook full meals, cots, chairs, lamps, leisure materials and firewood.  Not having much experience with fire building he put so much lighter fluid on the wood that a massive fireball flew up into the air and singed the tall pine trees hovering innocently above.  That was our only experience with camping.  Funny enough, I love camping... but not in a tent.

Today is clean the porch day and it is a beautiful day to do so.

Peace, 

Hilari