The Photo Bin - February 2015

Yes, I know. It's the middle of March and about freakin' time I got around to February's bin. For that matter, it's about time I got around to any kind of post. Dry for a month. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa. My bad.

But I’ve been out of pocket for a fortnight (more on that in a bit and why things will liven up around here shortly) and the weeks prior to that were less than remarkable, or busy, or both. Not much worth writing about and what might have been just got lost in the shuffle. It's time to get started again, so let's go.

In the fishing wasteland that is February, one grabs any angle they can. Thank goodness for the shows. The annual Fly Fishing Expo hit Winston Salem again and provided the opportunity to catch up with some friends, old and new. The kibitzing, the drinking, the poking around in piles of gear is fun, but I always seem to find inspiration around the casting pond. This year was no exception. I loved watching Lori-Ann Murphy of El Pescador tutoring a future enthusiast, bringing the sport to a wider audience and putting ridiculous gender biases in their place. I smiled for the rest of the day.

I also slipped away to Asheville on a bitter cold day for the Orvis's Down the Hatch Fishing Festival and Guide Rendezvous at the Highland Brewing Company. I've never seen so many puffy jackets in one place. Looked like a Patagonia warehouse exploded. I wanted to take a picture of them all together, but decided that trying to tell a bunch of guides what to do was, well, pretty ambitious. I settled, instead, for a shot of the band, Carolina Call Time. A good time was had by all.

And speaking of bitter cold... The South took it hard this past month. Yeah, you Northeasterners might laugh, but when you ain't used to it...

... and sometimes snow pictures turn into something else. Painterly, as my friend Bob would say.

Perhaps the most interesting outing of the month was our local Biofarm-To-Table dinner. We take great pride, Mary and I, in the fact that the vast majority of what we consume has been grown and raised within spitting distance of our home. We have come to know the farmers and growers of our county and support their organic and humane practices through our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs and farmers' markets. Grocery store visits are for paper towels and Mt. Dew and not much more.

Newly started by the good folks at our Piedmont Biofarm is a monthly dinner showcasing the fare from their fields and other enterprising locals, as interpreted by a local chef. The twist this month was that three days before the dinner, North Carolina fell into the deep freeze and the single digit temperatures ravaged the farm. Despite the setback, the meal was superb, highlighting the flexibility and creativity of both chef and farmer. Real-life subsistence, weather be damned.

The sign on the door to the farm office, above, made me chuckle, particularly the Feb 13th (Friday the 13th, the day before Valentines) entry.

And don't ask me what a Bubble Meeting is.

So I echo the Biofarm's sentiment - thank you for joining us. I apologize for the absence. But all is not lost for our "out of pocket" time was spent in the Caribbean, on the small island of Culebra, escaping winter's last barrage, and there's sure to be something to tell about that. Next week...

You have been warned.

What is a Photo Bin?