Two Bows And Distress On The Prairie Ocean

This past Sunday was quite an unpleasant day for me. I found myself going to the workplace and upon arriving there I carried with me a sense of dread. I had a most unsavory task to do which was to tell a young man he no longer had a job. For me...I just soon take a ass kicking. The lad in question indeed had some problems in dealing with the wonderment of simply being young. He couldn't seem to find a balance between responsibility and having a good ole time. I reminded myself of an old saying, "Every man has his troubles", but this wasn't the case of a man but rather a case of transition from boyhood, with seeds to be sowed, to the threshold of becoming a man. I fulfilled my dreaded deed and afterwards felt terrible.

As it is with my workplace I have figured out ways to excuse myself for a couple, maybe three hours, so at a time around mid-morning I decided to do just that. I needed to get away from the events of that Sunday morning and go somewhere to cleanse my mind of what had taken place at work.

I walked out of the store and hopped in the prairie schooner stopping at the house long enough to get my waders, rod, and camera and to the Lady Blue I pushed the ponies. I stopped along the way to take a picture of a drought ridden lake which is becoming a more common sight on the prairie ocean. The prairie ocean is in distress and we are in urgent need of moisture.



I stopped by Scotty's long enough to hang a lost and found poster about the two pieces of the four piece fly rod that Lane Kregel found in the catch and release area. Lane seems determined to find the owner of this gear. From Scotty's I went straight to Seventeen which has become my refuge at Blue. On this day I found solitude at Seventeen.

I waded into the river knowing I had less, much less actually, than an hour to seek the bows. I only wanted to commune with a couple of bows and as it would turn out two bows are what I met.

I named the first bow "Prize Fighter" because this bow seem to have that kind of attitude. The second I called "Splasher" and with both bows I was surprisingly pleased with their size...they were about normal for stockers at this time in the season. I had two bows and it was time to go. I had to get back to the workplace...that wretched place that gives me the means of getting by and buying some fly fishing stuff from time to time. It's one hell of a vicious circle.

Before I left I took another picture to record evidence of what the prolonged drought on the prairie ocean has produced. I've been on the Blue and the prairie oceans for quite some years now and I am seeing more and more signs of distress with both.

On the way back to the workplace I decided to take a short-cut and drive between two of the mining quarries that exist within the prairie ocean. The quarry to my south is the newest quarry and the subject of the latest threat to the Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer. Actually, this is the quarry that has scalped the quarry and now de-watering their mining pits. The quarry to my north is a silica plant and has been there for as long as I can remember. They've been operating for years without much scrutiny because they are established and water simply wasn't the issue years ago as it is today. But...I found something very interesting.

I crossed a feeder stream that actually had noticeable streamflow to it. I probably passed a half of dozen other feeder streams along my way that had absolutely no stream flow. What I was seeing wasn't a natural flow, but flow from "de-watering". Pure and fresh water from the Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer is going downstream on it's way to the Red River to mix with the salty saliva of the Gulf. That's sad.

This past Sunday I experienced distress at the workplace and then found distress on the prairie ocean. However, I had one hour of wonderful solitude and reflection on the river Blue. Blue didn't take away all of the heaviness on my mind but in the time I was with her those concerns seem to dissipate in thin air.