Spring Color

Between last week's rope and this week's buoy work, the grass turned green. Virtually overnight. That's the visible spectrum. On the tactile plane, air temperature and wind are still irksomely lurching between February Fresh and March Miserable. Sunday morning sees winds over 60 miles per hour- the winter gales' welcome long worn out. If it's sunny and there's a sheltered spot and I have a hoody under my Carhartt coat, it's tolerable working outside.

During those interludes when sun and air agree with each other, I paint buoys. This task is the most high gratification type of gear work. There can't be a much more optimistic sight than a hundred or so feet of rope strung between apple trees hung with freshly painted buoys. New paint goes on shiny and smooth over bleached, abraded, barnacled veterans from last season.

On one of the days when sun, wind and rain could find no basis for agreement, I worked in the barn, rigging up 80 new buoys from the seemingly endless pile of junk gear in the back yard. Every time I dig up a bunch of dirt-caked plastic and styrofoam junk and turn it into useable fishing equipment, every time the junk pile gets a little smaller, I am a happy fellow. These new/old buoys are every color and are hardly showroom condition. Many have been hacked up by propellers, scoured against the rocks, and puckered from being pulled underwater too far. They're all different shapes and sizes.

It's a motley, sad collection until the new paint goes on.