The dandelion will outlive us all

Without weeding, seeding, watering or worrying, I plan on having a bright, green lawn again this summer. Because, I happen to like dandelions. When everything else is toasted and brown, a good dandelion will still stand proudly green, as if telling the world that it is tougher than anything you can throw at it.

Dandelion fans never get enough credit. We don’t put a burden on the well or water tower, and we don’t spread harsh chemicals around. It is easy to tell who does, because their lawns look like golf courses and all the local squirrels have laser beam eyes and missing teeth. Instead of fighting the most successful flowering plant on the planet, I have learned to live with the little yellow marauders.

Dandelions evolved around 30 million years ago in Africa, Asia and Europe, and have been widely introduced nearly everywhere else. They are not going anywhere, and will probably outlive us all. If you think you can get rid of them, think again. Dandelions produce seeds asexually, without pollination, that are genetically identical to the parent plant. There were some families like that where I grew up, but they were never as successful as dandelions, and nowhere near as pretty.

Over 250 species of dandelion have been recorded in the British Isles alone. They win. Every time. A single plant will produce over 100 seeds per head and more than 2,000 seeds a year. It has been estimated a dense stand of pissenlits can crank out nearly 100 million seeds per hectare. Your grass just doesn’t stand a chance. The English name is a corruption of the French dent de lion, meaning lion's tooth, due to its coarse leaves. In modern French the plant is named pissenlit, or "urinate in bed", for its diuretic properties. There were no Pissenlit families where I grew up, but I still have my doubts. In parts of Italy, the plant is known as pisacan, which translates to "dog pisses", referring to how common they are at the side of pavements. There aren’t too many plants who can take a sidewalk crack and make it their own.

Although commonly known as weeds, the yellow terrors happen to have many uses. They have been used by humans for food and medicine throughout history. Dandelions are useful as a leaf vegetable. Bitter when raw, the greens are suitable in salads and often served with hard boiled eggs. The leaves are high in vitamins A and C, and carry more iron and calcium than spinach. If your kids won’t eat vegetables, try serving them pisacans. The flowers can be used to make dandelion wine, and a dynamite dandelion jelly. Ground roasted dandelion root can be used as a coffee substitute, and the plant’s milky sap has been used as a mosquito repellent.

So, you see, dandelions are our friends. If the day comes that you get sick of all the yellow in your lawn, send the kids outside armed with a few tubes of coloured paint, and tell them to start painting the flowers different colours. Just imagine how surprised mom or the neighbours will be when they get home. Who knows, a few of the plants might even die in the process. But don’t hold your breath.

Trout tails and tall tales

Trout are an elusive fish. The odds of going out and catching a stringer full of fat ones is about the same as winning a new car on a game show, dating a famous supermodel, or having a piano fall on your head. Despite those odds, intrepid anglers venture out every spring, ignore the rain and cold and personal hygiene, and search the depths for almighty trout. If you still think intrepid means brave, you’d be wrong. It means bonehead.

Between the rare moments of excitement when a trout actually does tighten a line, an angler has to find something to do. Some spit sunflower seeds, some spit tobacco, and some spit out fish tales. Sometimes those fish stories are harder to swallow than the cup of tobacco juice. Most of the boasts are rooted in reality, with a kernel of truth buried in there somewhere. Over time, however, they become twisted and grotesque and take on a life of their own, like the celebrities who love plastic surgery.

Last week, I ventured north to sit in a boat in the rain, sleep in a tent in the rain, stand under a tree in the rain, and start a fire in the rain. I even tried a little fishing. Lesser anglers might have complained about the raw weather, but trout hunters are made of more sandpaper than sugar. None of my fellow boneheads were complaining either, and at times it was so tranquil on the lake I thought I could hear fish laughing underneath the boat. And then the stories started.

Our local experts, Al and Jim, have been fishing together since Burt Reynolds had his own hair, and both are masters of the fish tale. They will tell you, for example, that years ago they were fishing together in a derby. Their only gear in the boat that day was a pole, line and bobber each, plus a case of ginger ale between them. What went into the drinks, and in what amount, differs depending on who is telling the tale, and how much ginger ale he has downed when he tells it. While the pros were throwing lures such as the Chubby Darter, Rocket Chad and Ugly Otter at the waves, Al and Jim were fishing with worms, drifting aimlessly, and sipping ginger ale.

Between the tall tales and laughter, they actually pulled in a pair of fish large enough to win prizes. It’s a classic tale, and may even seem true, to the intrepid. And then there’s the story of the time Jim was out and the trout were biting. He caught his limit, but couldn’t stop, and quickly filled his stringer with tasty fish. The game warden he met on the way home was not as impressed, and asked Jim what he was doing with so many fish. Jim told the warden that they were his pet fish, and he liked to bring them down to the lake to swim around. All he had to do was whistle once and they would swim right back onto the stringer; and he could prove it. The intrepid government employee watched as Jim set his fish free. After a few minutes of silence he asked when the fish were coming back. “What fish?” was Jim’s reply.

It’s hard to know what is fact and what is fiction when you hear a story like that. You want to believe it, and maybe it really is true. Just be careful, and look up. Because a piano just might be falling on your head.

Cold water fish taste better

May 7th, 2008

It is a rare occurrence, for me at least, to be fishing in water too cold to swim in. The bulk of my angling, and the bulkiest fish I’ve hooked, have been in warm water. If you can’t swim, you can still fish, and if you can’t fish, you can still go for a swim. The two are linked, like popcorn and butter, socks and shoes, or stock car racing and chewing tobacco.

It has been said there really is no such thing as a bad day of fishing. Even those days when you push a hook through your thumb (and it does happen) are better than a day at work. If you can punctuate that day with a good swim, and cap it all off with a fish dinner, even better.

Spring fishing, however, requires more discipline. Any old fool can climb into a boat and drop a line over the side. If the water is warm, you can drop yourself over the side as well, no worries. The colder the water, the more careful you have to be. A conservation officer once told me that most male drowning victims are found with their fly down or pants undone. This may seem strange, unless you’re the type to lean out of a boat yourself.

A smart person knows enough to never get in a boat unless they can survive falling out. Spring fishing is worth the risk, mind you, because cold water fish taste better. Ask anyone what their favourite freshwater fish is, and nine out of ten will say pickerel or trout. There is a reason for this. The trout and the pickerel are cold water fish, and stay down low. The bass and pike don’t mind a little warm or shallow water and, while still quite delicious, can wind up tasting somewhat stronger on the dinner plate.

Trout fishing in the spring is like shopping in the frozen food section. You might say, the trout benefits from staying refrigerated for most of its life. It makes me wonder what the fish at the bottom of the ocean taste like, because it’s plenty cold and dark down there, in the deep with all the heavy stuff. I’ll wager those fish taste like metal, or a cut lip, because human blood and sea water are alike in many ways, after all.

I have never caught a fish from the bottom of the sea, and don’t want to. Unless library books have lied to me all my life, those fish are scary, and should be left alone. Down where the water temperature is near freezing and sunlight can’t penetrate, you’ll find such undersea monsters as the angler fish, gulper eel, fangtooth, dragonfish and giant oarfish. Find pictures of these saltwater demons, and you’ll be glad you don’t see them every day.

Fish living in the ocean’s twilight zones don’t eat every day, and have to rely on food that falls down from above. They also eat each other whenever possible, and many have developed long, sharp teeth and expandable jaws and stomachs, sort of like a few of the anglers I’ve met. Some fish, like the primitive hagfish, gather around a floating corpse with surprising speed and devour it by burrowing into the animal and eating it from the inside out. That alone should be enough to keep an angler in the boat instead of the water. It is a sacrifice I am willing to make this spring, and I hope the trout will understand.

There’s nothing wrong with being #2

April 30th, 2008

Basically, there are three different types of people in this world. There are those that do not, those that do, and those that do too much. If you are looking for a type to call your own, don’t be afraid to choose type two. Type one do little, and tolerate even less. When you ask a type one what they have done, or would they like to try something, their answer is most often nothing, or no.

Type one have trouble sleeping at night, because they are usually fussing over what other people are doing. Type one wash their hands a lot, worry about what might be hanging around too long in their colon, and have probably never drunk out of a puddle on a dare. Type one say things like your jacket smells funny, or that’s going to hurt or you’ll shoot your eye out, kid. Type one think they have seen everything, and that’s enough. They need to let their hair down, and relax a while.

Type two, on the other hand, will try anything once and, if they like it, try it twice. They have done a few things, and probably a few things they shouldn’t have. More often than not, type two had fun doing it. Type two will eat food off the floor if no one saw them drop it, worry if there will be a beer strike, and have probably dropped their pants in public at least once. Type two say things like I’ll never drink like that again, or that was the best or oh yeah, good times. Type two are always looking for something new, and usually find it. They live life in the fast lane, but know when to stop for a nap.

Type three, on the other hand, do more than you, and then do some more. When you look at type three, you see a little bit of yourself, if you were the type to stay up for three days eating nothing but gravel and gasoline, fight with the knots in your shoelaces, and argue with the dog. Type three dive in head first, with warning or without, and don’t care who knows it. They think hazard is where the Duke boys live, think helmets are for miners, and suffer from hypothermia because they urinate out of doors. Type three say things like dude, you gotta try this or this is awesome or hey, I can’t feel my legs. Type three think life is a race, and they are gunning for the lead. They are sometimes told to get a haircut, and get a real job.

None of this would be a problem, except that type one hates type three, type three hates type one, and type two prefers to stay out of everyone’s way. If you still don’t know what group to call home, try this simple test: If you have ever walked down the street and said just don’t look at those people, you are probably a type one personality. If you have ever heard someone say this about you, then you are likely a type three. If you have never seen anything like this happen, you are sitting in type two. The worst of it is, type three are such a danger to themselves and others that the people of type one try to put a stop to everything, and ruin it for everyone in group two. Type two can’t do anything with type one calling the shots. Whether it is smoking or drinking, singing or dancing, speeding or breeding, the best place to be is in type two. There really is no shame in being number two.

Revenge of the funnel cake

April 23rd, 2008

Irony can be a hard concept to pin down at times. Popular singer Alanis Morissette tried a few years ago with a tune called Ironic, where she sang about rain on your wedding day, a traffic jam when you’re already late, and ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife. She should have titled her song Unfortunate, because none of what she mentions is actually ironic.

If you were a city planner, and got stuck in a traffic jam that left you late for a meeting of city planners, who were getting together to discuss city traffic problems, that would be ironic. The fact that Ironic contains no actual irony, is actually kind of ironic. See what I mean?

It can all get confusing. But fear not, for I have stumbled upon a perfectly delicious illustration of irony, one that you can use the next time someone asks you to define the term. I recently read that a ride at Disneyland is due to be shut down for months and revamped, because it keeps bottoming out when full of passengers. This can mean only one thing; that the people who visit Disneyland are bigger and fatter and heavier than ever before. Bottom line. And, what is the name of this ride? It’s a Small World. Now, that’s irony. I would buy a ticket just to watch that ride, and listen to the rails scrape and gears groan, as it tries to haul all the fun loving fat loving families wedged into the seats.

Maybe the people who go to Disneyland are eating too many of those delicious funnel cakes that are still so popular. A funnel cake is made by pouring sweet batter through a funnel into hot oil, in a circular pattern, and deep frying it until golden brown. It is often served with powdered sugar, jam, or other toppings such as icing or a heart attack. It gets its name from a specially-made pouring pitcher with an integral funnel-like spout, instead of a separate funnel. The round cakes are also known as elephant ears; not pig’s ears, which are the ears that perk up when a person hears “Funnel cakes for sale! Get ‘em while they’re hot!” It is also rather ironic that the very food sold to make money for Disneyland may wind up costing the park a bundle in the long run. Then again, they probably make far more money on cake than a ride with poor suspension.

The average funnel cake sells for a few bucks, and costs roughly 17 cents to make. Incidentally, this is exactly the number of pounds the average person gains every time they eat a funnel cake. Even Alanis will tell you this leans a little more towards the unfortunate than the ironic. Sadly, the cruel reach of the funnel cake has extended all the way to Japan, where researchers have designed a robot capable of identifying wines, cheeses and meats. Upon being given a sample, it speaks up and identifies what it has just been fed. The idea is that wineries can tell if a wine is authentic without even opening the bottle. When a reporter placed his hand in the robot's clanking jaw, he was identified as bacon. A cameraman tried, and was identified as prosciutto.

Humans beware! Robots think we taste like bacon. It will only be a matter of time before they consume us all. You might say even that’s ironic.