Stuff That Remains Green

January 23, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  I am very tired all day.  Still, around 3:30, I take Mwayla for her afternoon walk, shortly before both Moi and I leave for work around 5.

State of the Path:  Just take the circuit down to the creek and back.  In the brown weeds around the pig pen, I take note that there is gill-of-the-ground, or some similar plant, which seems to have remained green all winter.  It is green like much of the grass in our back yard, or like the grass in the path; though in the narrower parts of the path, the grass is being worn down, and being replaced by mud or dirt.  Everywhere else, except for moss and the scum in Moi’s pond, there is so much brown, including the creek.  There are discernable foot prints on the ant hill.

State of the Creek:  A new spot of cow piss foam has formed in front of a shelf of ice that readily crumbles when I touch it with my walking stick.

The Fetch:  Mway beats me to the clearing, and greets me with a smile.   She puts such energy in her first fetch, tossing the stick so vigorously at my feet that I expect I’ll be tossing the stick quite a few times today.  Not so.  One more fetch, and she heads back to the house.  In the clearing I note again the stick with all the fungus on it – Moi has mentioned to me earlier that she saw it today and took a picture of it.   Back in the back yard, Mway is running around without the stick.  I have to raise my arms and yell “Where’s the stick?”  Mway starts looking around, and for a moment I’m afraid that she’s lost it – it’s such a fine stick to throw that I’d be disappointed at that – but pretty soon she finds it in the side yard, carries it to the back porch, and drops it.  Inside, I decide to fill her bowl with dog food (a task which I’ve been leaving to Moi to do this past winter).  (I do this partly to test my theory that Mway has been lax about her number of fetches with me because I haven’t been giving her food immediately upon returning to the house.)