Starting the Orchard

With the new house and a couple acres of space, we wanted to start planting some apple / pear trees in our first year, so we could enjoy them in a few years when they matured.  We bought a Honeycrisp and Gala apple and a Bosc and Bartlett pear for our family Easter gifts.  The apples are dwarf and pears are semi-dwarf.  There is a lot to learn about fruit trees (if you want to really do it right), so I've been researching a lot.  For now, the trees are in the ground and we have a fence to keep the deer out. 

The twins had a ball helping throw dirt and playing peek-a-boo!   It's amazing how much joy can be found in a dirt hole! 



 Just add water

A few weeks later

Turkey Tail Mushrooms - Proven Cancer Killing Fungi

I continue to go further down the rabbit hole of learning about the mushrooms and their amazing health benefits.  This spring I came across some turkey tail mushrooms. 

 

Turkey Tail mushrooms are well-researched and one of the most revered medicinal fungi all over the world, but particularly in Japan and China. It is a herbal mushroom that has an tremendous amount of health benefits.   

 

The most interesting health findings are the Turkey Tail mushrooms have been proven by an NIH study to cure cancer — especially breast cancer.

 

Turkey Tail mushrooms offer a long list of medicinal properties and health benefits, but they are most prized as a natural source of the anti-cancer polysaccharide PSK.  PSK is said to fight cancer and halt tumors by inhibiting the growth of cancer cells and “stimulating a host mediated response.” PSK also promotes the body’s own “Natural Killer Cells” to strengthen and kick start the immune system.

PSK is frequently combined with chemotherapy to increase cancer survival rates.  Here are a couple links with more info:

 

http://undergroundhealthreporter.com/turkey-tail-mushroom/#axzz30tymrnU9

 

Here is what Dr. Andrew Weil has to say about turkey tail.

 

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400904/Turkey-Tail-Mushrooms-for-Cancer-Treatment.html

 

Here are some of the pictures of the turkey tail mushrooms I found - I see where it gets its name!

 

 

 

Grannom Caddis on the Little J

 

 

 

I met my good friend Tom on the Little J for the famed grannom caddis hatch.  For many reasons, this is probably my favorite hatch.  I'll never forget my first experience walking right into this hatch and not having a clue what was going on.  It was insane!  The tough part of this hatch is timing it right.  Its a relatively short hatch and one can easily miss it.  This day, the bugs were not at peak levels, but were pretty dang good. 

 

It was a cold morning (27 degrees) and the grannoms didn't start emerging until around 10 am.  By 10:30 am, the run above me looked like popcorn was popping out of the water with these bugs emerging.  What a cool sight to see!  There wasn't a ton of dry action so I stayed sub-surface and absolutely had a field day.  It was almost every cast at one point.  I could watch the trout feeding in the current and it was a bona fide feeding frenzy on the helpless caddis pupa.

 

It was really a nice day to be on the water.  There weren't many people and it felt like we had the stream to ourselves.  We ventured upstream and checked out some new water that I had not fished ever before.  We fished a solid 6 hours and had a couple cold Dales Pale Ale waiting for us at the truck.  I look forward to this hatch again next year.

 

 

The train trestles add to the character

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom took this picture at lunch while I was casting to a rising trout.  The big trout was right where you expect him to be ... right in front of the big flat rock (@ 11 o'clock).  I made a nice cast and started feeding fly line until the cdc & elk hair caddis drifted carelessly into his feeding lane.  Without hesitating he sucked it down.  At this point, I had what felt like about 30 feet of slack line I need to bring tight, and needless to say, he was gone...

 

Escape to the Little Juniata

 

Funny thing happens when you aren't able to fish as much as you always have in years past....you appreciate it more.  You appreciate just taking the first step in the water and making that first cast.  Of course, it always nice when you catch and fish and you can tell yourself, 'you still got it'  haha.  But its a pretty nice place to be in when all you care about is just being right there and enjoying.

Water was ~700 CFS.  Greenish perfect tint.  Caught couple on heavy nymphs.  stones, vladi.