Looking for Squirrels?

January 12, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  Work today in the early afternoon.  When I get home around 3 pm, everyone is taking a nap: Boy on the sofa, Moi and Mway up in their bedroom.  I decide to go to my bedroom to rest and read.   After about 10 minutes, I hear Moi and Mway get up, hear Mway slump her body against my bedroom door.  After about a half hour, I start drifting off, but am rudely awakened by Mway’s very sharp barking; sounds like its coming from outside.  I get up, put on my walking clothes, go downstairs.  Moi’s in the kitchen, washing dishes; Mway’s underneath the kitchen table.  I start to suit up and put on my boots; without too much pacing or huffing with excitement, Mway walks over to the back door.

State of the Path:  By the time we get outside she is full of energy, though, running off past the chicken coop, while I’m still shuffling along the clothesline.  By the time I get to the walled garden, I see she’s bounded off into the old orchard (what we usually call the “back acre”), running around, sniffing at things.   Perhaps she’s looking for squirrels.  When Blue was alive, he and Mway used to often chase squirrels in the back acre, frequently chasing them into some PVC pipes that used to lay out there, and barking at them from each end of the pipe.  I decide, since Mway’s already out there, to take the side path along the old orchard.  But as soon as I start on the path, Mway comes dashing toward me, passes by me, and starts going down the main path.  I call her back, and she comes running to follow me, but she bounds ahead and runs off somewhere where I can’t see her.  There is a new powder of snow on the ground today, and much of the path that was bare yesterday is covered with snow.  I walk using both my walking stick and Mway’s fetching stick like ski poles.  I round the cedar, and press down on the brambles and briars that are strewn on the path, hoping to make an impression to make the path clearer, but that probably won’t happen and this part of the side path will probably grow up with weeds and become impassable again this summer.   I come back to the main path, pass the wigwams, and when I enter bug land I see Mway’s still running around, this time down by the creek.

State of the Creek:    She’s even running back and forth across the creek, and she’s staying way ahead of me the whole walk.  I don’t really meet up with her until we get up to the clearing.  The creek today is almost completely frozen, and the ice is almost all covered with a powder of snow.  I see Mway’s tracks on them.   The only place where there is no ice is in two small spots at the cascade of rocks beneath the big midcenter oak.   There you can see the water, with its air bubbles, flowing underneath the ice, undulating and slipping along like the wax in a lava lamp.

The Fetch:   When I meet up with Mway at the clearing, she is walking toward me, smiling, ready to fetch.  I throw the stick once toward the end of the clearing, and then again toward the electric pole.  Just like yesterday, though, she only fetches the stick twice, then she bounds up the path to head back to the house.   She is already up at the porch when I come back past the chicken coop into the back yard.  This only fetching the stick twice or a few times seems to be becoming a habit with her; maybe it’s because the snow is slippery, and maybe in her middle age she is becoming wise to the fact that she can hurt herself dashing after the stick on slippery snow.  Who knows?