Maggie's Farm

Wrong about Everything.

A brief taste of it:

The whole enjoyable thing is here.

My good friend, Captain Wayne Beardsley, with a 35 pound Mahi Mahi caught 50 miles West of Puerto Rico off the stern of his 49’ Grand Banks Classic “Long Legged Lady.” He caught it using a classic form artificial squid streamer on a Ugly Stick 8’ fly rod and Van Staal C-Vex reel with weight forward #8 line tipped with 20 lb fluorocarbon leader.

The Mahi Mahi, also known as Dolphin or Dolphinfish, is one of the prized sport fish which also happens to be an excellent fish for dinner. Commonly found in temperate, tropical and sub-tropical waters, mahi are voracious eaters and will swallow almost anything from crustaceans to larger bait fish.  Fishing for mahi is somewhat rare up here in New England, but in late summer when the waters are warmer and/or the Gulf Stream wanders in closer to the coast, mahi can be hiding and/or hanging around weedlines, floating objects like trees, loose buoys and/or anchored navigation buoys.

Down south, looking for bird activity around floating structure will usually indicate the presence of mahi – in open ocean, you can bet on it.  In shore, it will be hit or miss – watch water temps for warmer than normal levels and inspect the floating structure for weeds and incrustation.

Rigging for Mahi on either spinning gear or fly is fairly straight forward. 7/8’ Medium to Medium Heavy rods with quick (fast) taper, sufficiently heavy large capacity reels like the Penn 460 large spool series or the above mentioned Van Staal and 30/50 lb mono with fluorocarbon leaders for spin and #8/9 forward weight fly line will survive a good fight.  Bait throwers will do well with large spinner baits and fly throwers will always find that Clouser imitations, white or fluorescent, the larger the better, will always work if you can find the fish.  They are an incredible aerobatic show and their colors will dazzle you (but fade rapidly at death).

Cautionary note on Mahi.  They are considered a moderate mercury fish so limiting your intake to once or twice a month is a good idea.  They can be a carrier for ciguatera poisoning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera) which has some flat out nasty neurological and physiological effects. Open water fish are generally ok, but those caught in/around reefs should be considered suspect.

Yellowfins hitting a school of baitfish. More photos here.

Keeps a pretty good beat. Drumming is not rocket science. We posted this version of Sweet Georgia Brown in the remote past, but it deserves another listen:

You would think that a farm barn is a farm barn is a farm barn, but it's not true.  There are significant differences between regions and even countries.

In colonial New England, farmers naturally adopted the "English" style barn - basically a square framed box with a moderate pitched roof.  It was not easily adaptable and eventually the "New England" barn evolved which was adaptable and expandable. Sadly, a lot of these barns no longer exist.

The Brunn Barn was one of the early progenitors of the "New England Barn" and has an interesting history in that it - well, no other way to put it - was "lost" for a while. Originally, the barn sat on the Brunn property which changed hands. The barn was moved to a different location on Butts Road near what was then Annhurst College (now the Woodstock Middle School and Hyde School complex) where it sat for most of the better part of hundred and fifty years. It was used as a general purpose storage building and even then, it didn't get much use.  So it effectively was lost as everybody just thought it was an old building left hanging on eventually deemed a "hazard" and subject to razing - the building had fallen into some disrepair and externally was covered with tar paper shingles.

As it happened, Dr. George Looby, a large animal vet was looking for a barn for use as an agricultural exhibit for the antique tractor and farm equipment section of the Fair.  This building was mentioned as a possible candidate and when Dr. Looby investigated, he discovered its history.  It is built using the "scribe rule framing" post and beam construction technique - every mortise and tenon joint is unique to that joint only - they are not interchangeable as they would be in square rule framing. Scribe rule was the hallmark of New England Barns of the time period.

The Brunn Barn was moved to the Fair grounds and restored to its original condition.  It now houses the mechanical and operations agricultural exhibition of the Woodstock Fair presenting the equipment and tools of the time period in which it was built.

In CT last week. A stacked-rail fence, I think - but maybe it's a zigzag fence:

Woodstock, CT has always held a certain pride in the education of its children from colonial days to the present. Higher education beyond the basics of readin', writin' and 'rithmetic wasn't a staple of affluent farming communities during those times and Woodstock was somewhat unique in supplying the opportunity to colonial children.  The "high" professions of religion, medicine and politics required a larger perspective on the world and the citizens of Woodstock provided that opportunity - mostly under the instruction of various religious and university educated leaders of the community.

As the town expanded and became more populous, the need for an organized "high" school became apparent. On January 12th, 1801 the town leadership "granted provision to build an academy on the North side of Town Common" and $100 was collected from 32 leaders of the community to build the facility.

Farmers from around the area supplied the appropriate amount of white oak and the raising was quite the social event.  On Feburary 2nd, 1802, the building was opened for operation under the guidance of Preceptor Thomas Williams of Pomfret, CT.

Over the years, Woodstock Academy has both prospered and fallen on hard times.  In the downturn of 1860, the original building was razed, basic post/beam construction saved and this building was it's replacement. Henry Bowen (remember him - Pink House?) donated $5,000 of the $20,000 raised and the rest is, as they say, history. Yale University had an interest in the operating of Woodstock Academy for many years (up until WWII) and supplied many of its original Preceptors and Instructors.

Woodstock Academy, while considered by the state as a public high school, is actually a private non-profit institution governed by a Board of Directors and operates outside the governance of the Woodstock Board of Education. It is considered a "free academy" - the only other similar institution in the US is also located in Connecticut, the Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, CT.

Woodstock, CT, last week: