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FALLS VILLAGE — At the July 8 meeting for the Board of Selectmen, the board accepted the resignation of Matt Gallagher as an alternate on the Housatonic River Commission and appointed Dick Heinz to the position.
The selectmen voted to send $1000 from federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to the Northwest Connecticut Transit District.
The selectmen recommended to the board of finance an appropriation of up to $6000 from the Bridge Reserve Account for the purpose of hiring Cardinal Engineering to prepare the proper grant paperwork for federal funding (100%) for the repair of Cobble Road Bridge and Canaan Mountain Road Bridge.
First Selectman Dave Barger noted that the state Department of Transportation is working on Route 7 in Falls Village and North Canaan, and the work is expected to continue up to the end of the month.
No action was taken on three items: the sale of 35 Railroad St., replacing a tree at the Falls Village Inn and the parking plan for the downtown area.
The dog days have arrived.
This phrase refers to the summer, which brings heat, which makes trout unhappy.
During the dog days, anglers have to watch the skies and the thermometer. A stream thermometer, in particular.
The rule of thumb is: No trout fishing when the water temperature hits 68 degrees. When the water gets to 68 or above, there is less dissolved oxygen, which makes it harder for trout to breathe.
That’s why the Housatonic River has several designated thermal refuge areas, where little creeks or springs trickle into the big river, providing some colder water. You’ll see trout stacked up in these places, like airplanes waiting to land at a busy airport.
Regrettably, you’ll also see unscrupulous anglers chucking stuff at these beleaguered fish.
Many of the signs designating these areas have either fallen off their trees or are obscured by brush. Addressing this would be an excellent summer project for somebody.
If you want to fish for trout your best option is a tailwater, and the closest is the West Branch of the Farmington River.
The interagency confusion that left the Farmington with low flows the last couple of years was, thankfully, resolved by the General Assembly in the recent session.
So the 20 miles or so downstream from the Godwin dam north of Riverton have been good-to-excellent in terms of flow and water temperature. Downstream from that, not so much, but that is par for the course.
This is where your stream thermometer comes in handy. I’ve got two. A digital version that clips to my pack, and a regular one that I have affixed to a long dowel, for getting a reading without getting my feet wet.
The other tailwater options I’m familiar with are in the Catskills, between one and a half and three hours driving time from Northwest Connecticut. The East and West branches of the Delaware River, below their respective dams, are the most consistent. The Neversink near Bridgeville is okay as of this writing but does warm up, and my home river, the Esopus, is usually a dawn and maybe dusk proposition.
All of these rivers can be found on the United States Geological Survey water data website, where there will be info on flow, water temperature, and sometimes turbidity.
Back to the Housatonic. The river is home to approximately 100 kajillion smallmouth bass, who don’t mind the warmer water.
This is the time to dig out a heavier rod (line weight 6-8) and that box of poppers you were convinced to buy in a weak moment at the Orvis store.
The wet fly was tied to a piece of fluorocarbon tippet which was in turn tied to the hook of the Gurgler.Patrick L. Sullivan
You can fool around with a sink-tip line, but 99% of the time a floating line is fine. The smallies will move up and down the water column without much prompting.
A shortish, stout leader is the way to go. I start with a 7.5-foot nylon leader tapered to 0X. This usually gets hacked up pretty quick, and I add additional sections of tippet, 0X-2X, as needed.
Tactics can be just about anything. Crayfish abound in the Hous; you’ll see bits of claw in the shallows. There are as many crayfish imitations as there are crayfish, it seems. But if you don’t want to buy a lot of new stuff, a brown Wooly Bugger will do the trick.
When I was new to smallmouth fishing, and didn’t know a smallie from a crab, I watched a Housatonic old-timer put on an incredible exhibition. Every second or third cast he hooked up, and not just with the immature bass (aka “dinkers”) either.
When he took a break, I asked him how he did it.
The answer: He dead-drifted a brown Wooly, size 6 or so, upstream, keeping it short, maybe a 20-foot cast.
As the line and fly went past him and started to drag, he executed a series of short jerks, using a combination of rod wiggling and line strips.
The takes usually happened a couple seconds into the dead drift, or on the swing-and-jerk.
Last week I took an early morning shot at the Hous downstream of the Falls Village power station.
This is easy to get to but tricky once you’re in, mostly because of the wires that support the kayak gates.
Look at them sometime. They are liberally festooned with lures and flies.
If you don’t know how to sidearm, you will.
I caught a couple of dinkers on a brown Wooly. Craving surface action, I switched to a gurgler, which is a green foam thing that’s supposed to look like a…I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like.
This failed to interest anything, and it was getting hot.
Just for laughs, I tied a dropper to the bend of the hook on the gurgler and attached a reverse-hackle wet fly designed for Tenkara fishing.
I let this combo drift into the shallow riffle and was pleasantly surprised when an adult smallmouth, with vertical stripes and bronze coloring, took the wet fly.
I rassled it into the net, got my exciting photo, released it and immediately left.
It’s important to know when you’ve got a good exit line.
Cool coffee granitas
As I write, it is about a thousand degrees. And said to be staying there as we slog through this existential climate change, which I believe used to be known as summer. I was going to write about new and exciting developments in the pizza world, but probably no one south of the Nordkapp is going to turn on an oven much before October if this keeps up. So pizza will have to wait for who knows when, and, instead, I’ll offer something that’s really cold, really easy, and really good. You’ll love it, I promise.
Hang on a minute, I have to go open the refrigerator door and lie down on the floor in front of it for a while first. Be right back . . .
Okay that’s better.
I first had this, coffee granita, in Sicily a few years ago. Granita is, basically, flavored ice chips, and there are many variations. In Sicily, where the temperatures in summer are so high that they can’t be measured by instruments invented by humans, this is often breakfast. Topped with some whipped cream, it can make what lies ahead as the sun ascends seem more bearable. I remember sitting in a plaza having some for the first time and thinking Wow!!! This stuff is Great!!! Or I would have thought that if it hadn’t been too hot for so many exclamation points. I wish I were there again now, though. It’s probably cooler.
Coffee Granita
Italy is a place where coffee plays a serious cultural role, so it’s possible that they start with freshly brewed espresso. We’re not doing that: substituting instant espresso will simplify the workload here and, time in the freezer aside, you can put this together very quickly and easily. The reward far outweighs the effort. Make sure you offer blessings to the ground walked on by whoever invented it.
Serves six or so, keeping in mind that second helpings are usually required and appreciated.
Fill a quart measure with boiling water.
Add eight heaping teaspoons of instant expresso, available in supermarkets - Medaglia d’Oro and Ferrara are two brands. I have both and usually use four teaspoons of each, but no matter. I use a measuring teaspoon and dip it into the jar. Heaping, as I said.
Add slightly more (a tablespoon more) than 3/4 c. of sugar. Stir to dissolve.
Add both the coffee and the sugar to the water. It defies reason, but putting them into your quart measure first results in a smaller amount of liquid than doing it the way I said. If you want to know why, you’ll have to call your high school chemistry teacher, I haven’t the faintest.
Let the mixture sit on the counter for a while, at least 20 minutes. Or longer. Or put it in the refrigerator for a bit. You can go lie down somewhere while you wait for it to cool down some.
When it has, add:
2 tsp. vanilla
4 tsp. Kahlua
If the mix is too hot the alcohol will evaporate, and I think the alcohol is what keeps the granita in a large grained, slushy state, even when frozen. I haven’t checked this out with my old chemistry teacher either, but that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
You can put this into the refrigerator for a few hours to cool it further, which will make freezing it quicker, or proceed immediately to freezing.
Pour the mixture into a flat stainless steel pan with high sides, a roasting pan, for example. Do not use a non-stick pan, it will be ruined. Clear a flat spot in your freezer and put in the pan. After an hour, and every half hour after that, scrape down the mixture with a large fork, putting the pan back into the freezer after each scrape. it will take a few hours to freeze it all, and it will look like large flakes. It stays in a servable state for a good while, so it can be made a day ahead. It’s still good after that, too, if there’s any left.
Watch out when you remove the pan for the first few scrapes, it’s easy to spill. I knew from the beginning that this would be a permanent part of my life, so I bought NordicWare covered metal pans from Amazon for this. Up to you, but, again, be careful of spills in the beginning.
Serve with sweetened whipped cream. The granita is sweet enough, so I use very little sugar in the cream. It’s a good idea to use chilled bowls for serving, it melts fast. Fabulous for dessert on a hot evening. If you decide to have this for breakfast, and why not, tell your mother I said it’s okay to have a little whipped cream at the beginning of the day. Life is better that way, sometimes.
Pamela Osborne lives in Salisbury.
For the past 17 years, a community of artists have shown a visual feast of their paintings, sculpture, jewelry, photography, and decorative arts in an annual exhibition in Norfolk.
Following tradition, more than thirty members of Norfolk Artists & Friends (NAF), a membership organization of professional artists, will be showing their artwork this summer in a group exhibit at the Art Barn Gallery on the Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk from Aug. 1 to 4. The show is sponsored by the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival – Yale School of Music, to which 15% of the sales is donated.
The NAF exhibit will run concurrently with the ninth annual Weekend in Norfolk, the town’s three-day summer festival from Aug. 2 to 4.
Ruthann Olsson, Norfolk-based interior designer and artist who founded NAF (inspired by her friend Patricia Miller) in October of 2007, expressed gratitude for the generosity of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival for its sponsorship of NAF. “We are truly blessed to have the Art Barn Gallery to show our work. This year we have 33 artists showing, among them four new members. The show will cover the disciplines of sculpture, drawing and painting, printmaking, photography, and fine jewelry.” Cyd and John Emmons will professionally install the work.
The Art Barn Gallery on the Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk, the site of the 17th Annual Norfolk Artists & Friends Art Exhibit. Jennifer Almquist
Norfolk has a long, illustrious history of attracting fine artists, and generous patrons of the arts that supported them. One such early patron, Robbins Battell (1810-1895) shared his collection of works by Hudson River painters, such as Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, and George Inness with the people of Norfolk. The paintings were hung in the music room and library of Whitehouse, a landmark historic building. In 1898, Norfolk luminaries Carl Stoeckel and Ellen Battell Stoeckel hosted the president of the National Academy of Design, Frederick Dielman, at their Norfolk home. In 1928, a family friend Louis Comfort Tiffany oversaw the installation of five Tiffany stained glass windows in the Battell Chapel in Norfolk, commissioned by Ellen Battell Stoeckel.
Norfolk contemporary artist Tom Hlas said recently, “I’ve exhibited with the Norfolk Artists & Friends ever since we moved to Norfolk in 2012. It’s a great group of artists that covers a wide range of mediums and styles. The annual art exhibit is always one of my art highlights of the year. Plus, it’s great to see and talk with collectors and buyers who attend the show every year. I definitely look forward to this year’s show. Each year the exhibit looks better and better!”
The stated mission of NAF is to “bring together a community of Norfolk-area artists to network, gain a reputation in the community and beyond, provide opportunities to market their work, and enhance conditions for making a sustainable income.”
Babs Perkins, a photographer who lives in Norfolk, will be showing her work in the August show. “I always look forward to participating in the Norfolk Artists & Friends show each year. Ruthann [Olsson] had a vision and here we are years later still going strong. Thanks to the range of artists and mediums, it’s always an interesting and diverse exhibition. A few years ago, we decided to have the show professionally hung, and wow, is it ever worth it. I think we (as artists) are fortunate to have such a fantastic opportunity right here in Norfolk. And getting to use the beautiful gallery space in The Eldridge Barn (aka The Art Barn) on The Battell Stoeckel Estate is a big plus. It’s also an incredible way for folks both in town and from the wider area to see the art being created here.”
NAF founder Olsson shared her view that “Artists are positive creators, adding strength and beauty to our universe. These creative bursts of the spirit offer an endless tribute to our humanity.”
Jim Jasper works as a graphic designer from his home in Norfolk. He is also a fine artist whose past work includes illustrations of each chapter of Melville’s Moby Dick. He enjoys his connection with NAF. “It is a great way to forge bonds with other artists, many of whom have been showing with the group for years. The show has become a summer ritual in the town.”
Artwork by Norfolk artist Tom Hlas.Provided
Norfolk Artists & Friends 17th Annual Art Exhibition
August 1 – 4, 2024
At the Art Barn Gallery on the Battell Stoeckel Estate.
Special sneak preview, Thursday, Aug. 1, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Gala Reception, Friday, Aug. 2, from 5 to 7:30 p.m.
Hours of exhibition: Saturday, Aug. 3, 12 p.m. – 5 pm Sunday, August 4, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Follow signs on the Stoeckel Estate to the Gallery from Routes 44 & 272 in Norfolk, Connecticut.