This is the time of year when things that are taken for granted any other time, consume my thoughts and become as important as making sure there’s enough bacon for Seamus in the morning. So after tinkering and trifling with anything and everything, my attention was turned loose on dog hair.
It occurred to me – when I happened to glance at a dark sweatshirt I was wearing –that Seamus is leaving a trail of white and liver colored hair on everything he rubs against or in the air when he shakes; which isn’t that often because I think he’s trying to conserve energy like I am. Anyway, I digress.
Suddenly it crossed my mind that “She Who Must Be Obeyed” is constantly on me to brush Seamus because, as she puts it, “There’s dog hair on everything in the house and it’s clogging up the vacuum.” But Seamus is about as excited about being brushed as I am about shaving. (“She Who Must Be Obeyed” has thoughts on that too.)
I thought back to when I had Jake, my yellow lab, who’s fur I collected and used it to tie caddis wings on smaller hook sizes. It wasn’t as stiff as bucktail and stiffer than squirrel tail. So I began pulling dog hair from my shirt, the couch and loveseat, and before I knew it I had a nice little bundle of fine soft fur. Dry fly dubbing is soft, I thought. So I cut it up with a sharp pair of scissors until I could dub it on tying thread without protruding strands.
The next step was to get the right mixture of colors. The white with a little brown made a shade I could use for sulfurs but, if I mixed in more brown, I could use it for other mayfly patterns …then it hit me. I could bundle the different mixtures up and sell them. But first I had to get a decent quantity.
“She Who Must Be Obeyed” was all for it. She got out the vacuum cleaner, showed me how to turn it on, and showed me what the attachments were for. I was on the way to….hey, wait a minute.
Boy that was a close one.
TD