Yesterday the work crew mobilized to the Pell Bridge @ 5:45 a.m. The plan was to take two lanes for 1500' from 6:00 to 2:00 and perform deck repairs.
Visibility on the deck was about 100', if that. The pushy inspector/expeditor (unnamed) wanted to get the work done, but after two hours of waiting, watching, and BSing, the near-solid grey dome still gripped the bridge. The foreman of the work crew explained that it was just too dangerous (as opposed to the everyday hazardous) to set up.
The pushy expeditor (still unnamed) gave him a shot, "Hey Umberto, it's a good day to die--are you afraid to die?"
In his always-humble Portuguese inflection he explained, "No no, it's just that today is my son's birthday."
The shadbush, a spindly white-flowered shrub, is starting to bloom. That means American shad — the fish technically known as Alosa sapidissima — are likely to be running up the great rivers of the Northeast, the Delaware, the Hudson, the Connecticut and their tributaries. You can join the red-eyed legion of shad anglers casting shad darts, a type of lure, on the Delaware. Or, you can simply read John McPhee’s “The Founding Fish,” which contains everything you need to know about the fish, though it might not help you hook one.
The shad themselves are reminders of earlier springs, when Northeastern rivers teemed with fish. Sturgeon, smelt, baby eels fresh from the Sargasso Sea, striped bass, sea lampreys, alewives and blueback herring — all of them ran up the rivers about now, following a vernal instinct that points directly upstream. The great runs have gone, ended by dams, development and pollution. The shad itself is like a local oyster, vestige of a time when they were innumerable.
We live in the shadow of those prodigal springs. But there is a vernal instinct in humans, too. This week, ramps, a wild leek, are poking up in woodland clearings, many bound for the skillet. Nettles are still small enough to eat, and in a week or two the morels will be popping up, and fiddleheads, too. The seasonality of garden produce is one thing — tomatoes in their time! — but the seasonality of this early bounty is something entirely different, a gift, a reward and, too soon, a memory.
Wonder if the fish these trees are eponymously named after are running up the Connecticut River this early in April on their spawning migration?
ReplyDeleteI dunno about the Connecticut River, but I had shad roe in early March in NYC.
ReplyDeleteFog
ReplyDeleteThe fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Carl Sandburg
Yesterday the work crew mobilized to the Pell Bridge @ 5:45 a.m. The plan was to take two lanes for 1500' from 6:00 to 2:00 and perform deck repairs.
ReplyDeleteVisibility on the deck was about 100', if that. The pushy inspector/expeditor (unnamed) wanted to get the work done, but after two hours of waiting, watching, and BSing, the near-solid grey dome still gripped the bridge. The foreman of the work crew explained that it was just too dangerous (as opposed to the everyday hazardous) to set up.
The pushy expeditor (still unnamed) gave him a shot, "Hey Umberto, it's a good day to die--are you afraid to die?"
In his always-humble Portuguese inflection he explained, "No no, it's just that today is my son's birthday."
Gone home.
There needs to be a like button.
ReplyDeleteKathleen Mock likes this pic.
from today's N Y Times
ReplyDeleteThis Prodigal Season
The shadbush, a spindly white-flowered shrub, is starting to bloom. That means American shad — the fish technically known as Alosa sapidissima — are likely to be running up the great rivers of the Northeast, the Delaware, the Hudson, the Connecticut and their tributaries. You can join the red-eyed legion of shad anglers casting shad darts, a type of lure, on the Delaware. Or, you can simply read John McPhee’s “The Founding Fish,” which contains everything you need to know about the fish, though it might not help you hook one.
The shad themselves are reminders of earlier springs, when Northeastern rivers teemed with fish. Sturgeon, smelt, baby eels fresh from the Sargasso Sea, striped bass, sea lampreys, alewives and blueback herring — all of them ran up the rivers about now, following a vernal instinct that points directly upstream. The great runs have gone, ended by dams, development and pollution. The shad itself is like a local oyster, vestige of a time when they were innumerable.
We live in the shadow of those prodigal springs. But there is a vernal instinct in humans, too. This week, ramps, a wild leek, are poking up in woodland clearings, many bound for the skillet. Nettles are still small enough to eat, and in a week or two the morels will be popping up, and fiddleheads, too. The seasonality of garden produce is one thing — tomatoes in their time! — but the seasonality of this early bounty is something entirely different, a gift, a reward and, too soon, a memory.
I wish I had my morels in Missouri.
ReplyDeleteAnd some more shad roe from Citarella!