Youth Sports Post: When You're Glad To Have a Son Who Steals

M5-class Flare Is M5-class Mindblower

From EarthSky.

The sun produced an M5-class flare earlier today (May 22, 2013), which peaked at 1332 UTC (8:32 CDT). In the image below – from NASA SOHO, you can see the beautiful coronal mass ejection produced in the flare. The CME was not Earth-directed but could deliver a glancing blow in the next few days.

M5-class explosion from sunspot AR1745, which was about to disappear behind the sun’s western limb. The flare peaked at 1332 UTC (8:32 CDT) on May 22, 2013. The sun is behind the occulting disk at the center of the image, which is from from NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, space observatory.

"May Song" by Wendell Berry

Photo: "Weeds in the Rubble" by Jenny Brighton

For whatever is let go
there's a taker.
The living discovers itself

where no preparation
was made for it,
where its only privilege

is to live if it can.
The window flies from the dark
of the subway mouth

into the sunlight
stained with the green
of the spring weeds

that crowd the improbable
black earth
of the embankment,

their stout leaves
like the tongues and bodies
of a herd, feeding

on the new heat,
drinking at the seepage
of the stones:

the freehold of life,
triumphant
even in the waste

of those who possess it.
But it is itself the possessor,
we know at last,

seeing it send out weeds
to take back
whatever is left.

Proprietor, pasturing foliage
on the rubble,
making use

of the useless--a beauty
we have less than not
deserved.

"May Song" by Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems.
© Counterpoint Press, 2012.

River Report: River Recedes, Tensions Rise

The flood is over. The warning has been lifted, the river is below flood stage and still going down.

At its peak the water level was just even with the first cross bar below the top of the gate.

So how has the fishing been with the water dropping and all those carp bopping?

Sigh. We got a neighbor problem.

Nobody's mad. They just don't want us to get hurt or drown and sue them.

Well, OK, Jeremiah's mad. And I'm a little miffed, I have to say.

Maybe we can work it out before next Spring. In the meantime, it won't stop us fishing in the river. We'll just have to go the longer way around to get there.

Trout Lake Report: More Time To Fish

You finally get to the lake again. The day is warm and windy, a pageant of light and shadow.

You run the shorelines again with a muddler, and you find some fish tucked in among the willows.

In a river, if you aren't hanging up on the bottom sometimes you aren't deep enough. At a lake, if you aren't hanging up on the shoreline sometimes you aren't close enough.

You see a fish working and tie on a brand new stimulator just for a change of pace. 

It takes several casts and a lot of coaxing, but you finally get the take you've been looking for. This Brown is a jumper. He jumps twice before you get the net under him.

You get some photos in the net, then pick him up and switch him around for a closeup shot with the fly, and he jumps a third time, right out of your hand into the water. You grab the leader by reflex, he gives one head shake, and he's gone--with the fly. So you crop a photo for a bogus closeup.

They fire up another prescribed burn. You make another circuit.

You're in John's Cove and a nice Brown porpoises just a few feet to your left. Unfortunately, your fly is way out in front of you. You go after him, but he won't come to the muddler. You get a small Rainbow to bite, though.

And later another small Rainbow. You're reminded that even with catch and release this is a dangerous business.

You kick up a different shoreline. You get a good hookup--some weight to it--but it comes undone for some reason. 

So you have to be content with another small rainbow...

And a small Brown.

The day winds down. You fish it out, but catch no more fish.

But you've been fishing for hours, you've had a good workout--your stripping hand has a kink in it, and you're ready to call it a day.

You climb into the truck, crank it up, and then see by the dashboard clock that it's already 9:26. And tomorrow there will be even more time to fish....

Dude, Check This Out: Stevie Ray

Debut breakout album, 1983.

Wouldn't Mind Being There

Check out their tour dates in case you're in northern Norway this week.

Heads up, Saturn Lovers

From that amazing site EarthSky. Seriously, check it out.

Golden Saturn as seen by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1980

The best time to see the planet Saturn in 2013 is now! Saturn will be out nearly all night for most of May. Why is Saturn so good to view this month? The reason is that we passed between Saturn and the sun in late April. At that time, Saturn was opposite the sun as seen from Earth. Now Earth has moved on slightly in its orbit, so that Saturn appears in our eastern sky as soon as darkness falls.

To find Saturn in 2013, first locate the Big Dipper in the northern sky. 

Let it guide you to the star Spica. Then look for Saturn near Spica.