Moi Comes Along

March 21, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today, and when I get home, sometime around 6:30, it is, unfortunately, because of daylight savings time, still light out.   I ask Moi if Mway needs to go out, and she says yes.  I invite Moi to come along for the walk (today is the anniversary of our meeting each other in NYC 31 years ago).  Moi brings along her iPhone to take some photos.

State of the Path:  Because of the long work day, I am perhaps not as attentive as I usually would be, and, with Moi along for the walk, there is a lot going on.  Before we even reach the path, Moi throws some feed into the cage for the chickens, who strut in after it, Mway lunging at one or two of them.  When we reach the walled garden, and the bags of trash piled there, Moi talks about burning the trash tomorrow during the rain we’re suppose to get.  Past the walled garden, there are (as I actually noticed a few days ago) leaves of day lilies coming up.  I lead Moi (and Mway) down the side path along the old orchard, a route that Moi says she never takes.  We brush past the new raspberry runners, and Moi talks about not cutting them back (as she once heard you were suppose to do to get bountiful fruit) to see how they do this year.  I mention what I have been calling garlic grass, and Moi corrects me, calling the tufts of green plants all over the place wild onions (indeed, I remember now that there is a plant that comes up later in the spring, quite widespread, which it took us a long time to find the name for, which we call garlic grass).  We circle around the cedar tree and come back around to the main path.  I point out to Moi how I’ve been trampling down a path here through the weeds, but express my doubts that I’ll be able to maintain a path here all through the summer.  Birds are singing and chirping, rabbits are running, and down by the creek, the peepers are squeaking, but I’m not paying too much attention to these things today.

State of the Creek:  The creek is running gently as it has the last few days.  Along the path, Moi points out some wild mustard that is coming up (this may have been what I called gill-of-the-ground a few days ago).  At the log jam, Moi marvels at the big log that spans the creek, and wonders where it came from.  We both wonder if it was indeed the Boy who several weeks ago took the barrel out of the creek.  I ask Moi what makes the scum on the water, and she shakes her head.  I look up in the big oak across the creek, hoping to see the red headed bird there so I can enlist Moi in helping me to identify it, but I don’t see anything.  Moi stops before the oaks and remarks that she thinks the creek is getting wider there.  Where the path narrows beyond the oaks and just before the drainage area of bug land, she points out how the creek is undermining the bank, and that some time soon the ground might give way there (as it did at one place to me a couple years ago).   Then she starts stomping on the ground, forcing the ground to give way, and I yell at her to stop, telling her that there’s no need to aid the process.  I invite Moi to follow me on the side path along the skating pond, another route she says she never takes herself (as I know perfectly well).  As we double back at the far ridge then pass along the creek, I spot something white in the ground, and when I dig it up, it turns out to be, as I suspect, another golf ball.  Crossing the feed channel on our way back to the main path, I ask Moi what the plants are there that are growing in the water.  She says that some of them are sweet flag that she transplanted there some years back and another one is sedge.  I point out to her the animal skull that I found a couple weeks ago and placed in the tree by the channel.  At the pines just before the break in the ridge around bug land, Moi bends over and fondles the new pine sapling which she pointed out to me many months ago, and which has survived the winter without me stamping on it.  We pass through the break in the ridge, both of us finding it difficult to walk on the path here without getting our feet wet.

The Fetch:  Up in the clearing, Moi takes pictures as I toss the stick for Mway – I forget exactly how many fetches Mway makes.  About three.  On the way back to the back yard, Moi points out to me how this winter the feet have broken off of her cupid statue in her garden pond.