Blood on the Ice

February 1, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  Moi has gone to Punxatawney to work there for the next couple days, and the Boy is still working in Aspen, Colorado.  That means that tomorrow and possibly Wednesday I’ll have to take Mway out for both her morning and afternoon walks.  When I leave for work late in the morning, Mway is in Moi’s bedroom, lying on the floor on top of Moi’s slippers.  When I come back early in the afternoon, she’s still lying there.  Doesn’t bark when I come in the door, or acknowledge my presence in any way.  But as soon as I start to put on my snow suit around 2:30, she dashes down the stairs and begins circling the kitchen table, ready for her walk.

State of the Path:  Moi’s garden pond and the puddles in front of it are still frozen, and the ground is still pretty hard, although the path from the pig pen down to bug land seems to have new mud jumbled and riddled with foot and paw prints (perhaps from Moi’s walks yesterday?).  I take the side path along the old orchard, Mway still lagging behind once we round the cedar and having to step gingerly over the blackberry and other brambles that still have not been pressed down by me walking over them.   Once we get back to the main path, though, Mway overtakes me and beats me down to the creek.

State of the Creek:   As I start walking along the creek, I see Mway has stopped at the log and barrel jam and is sniffing at one of the logs.  I stop there too, and as I’m looking at the frozen pool behind the jam, testing it with my walking stick, I suddenly see a spot of blood on the ice, and then I see blood splattered all over the log that thwarts the creek.  I look over at the far creek bank, and as it seems to me that the weeds are a little pressed down over there, I imagine a deer coming down at dusk, tripping over the log, and cutting its nose.  As I don’t see any sign of an animal, I move on, but Mway hangs out for a little while, looking up at me as I look back, as if to say, wait a minute, there’s something here to find.   I take the side path to the skating pond, finding it a little hard to cross the feed channel without slipping either on the side of the ditch or on the ice.   Because the weeds are beaten down along the pond, I decide to step up to it and look it over.  There’s definitely moisture and signs of water below the grass and weeds, but not enough, I think to myself, for a skating pond, especially with all the weeds and stuff.  As I turn around at the far ridge and come back along the creek, I spot the golf ball again on the other side and consider walking across the creek to get it.  But when I poke the ice with my walking stick, I find the ice is too thin in this part of the creek to venture across.  As I’m walking up to the clearing, I realize that my walking stick and Mway’s fetching stick are just about the same length, since Mway broke part of my walking stick a few days ago by passing me in the path.

The Fetch:  Mway beats me to clearing, but she only fetches the stick about three times.  Back at the porch, I let Mway in the house, but then I stay outside to do three chores that most of the time Moi would do: bring the trash can back from the end of the lane, check the coop for any eggs (I find three), and haul in a bag of wood pellets.  Back inside, as I see Mway is looking up at me and milling around the kitchen, I see that I’ll have to feed her too.  First I only give her a biscuit, because it seems too early for her supper, but since she keeps looking up at me, I fill her dog dish too.  As she’s eating, I rip open the bag of pellets and start dishing them out into the hopper of the stove (also, usually one of Moi’s chore).   Mway runs over by me and starts barking, the wood pellets rattling in the bag and in the hopper sounding to her just like her dried dog food.