Striders and a Butterfly

March 31, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  This morning Moi and I make our annual excursion to S________ to buy kielbasa and city chicken for Easter.  When we come home we both lie down to rest for an hour; I have to work tonight; it is now about 2:30, and I am about ready to take Mway out for a walk.  Moi has already let Mway outside, and from my office window, I see her chase a ground hog into the summer house, then roll on her back in the yard.  It is pretty warm out, so I’m not planning on wearing a jacket today.  I have my contacts in, so I plan to bring along binoculars.

State of the Path:  Outside, Mway is sitting in front of the porch in the middle of the chickens.  When she sees me, she runs back over to the summer house, starts sniffing the dirt for the ground hog.  Since she went that way, I decide to take the reverse way on the path.  Mway lingers around the summer house, then finally catches up with me at the break in the ridge, where I’m trying to bend back a sumac branch so I have more space to step around the puddled ground.  Mway runs past me and wades into a puddle in bug land.  In the area of the red willows, I see a bird in the shrubs, but by the time I raise my binoculars it has flown away.  The mud in the feed channel is glistening bright in the sun; I barely manage to negotiate it without falling.  I still don’t see any colt’s foot near the skating pond.  Mway wades into the creek.  After she steps out, I see drops of water shining in the path that have fallen off her coat.  On the way back over the feed channel, I see how Mway gets across it: she scoots under the wild olive shrub then hops over the channel where it’s not so steep and muddy.

State of the Creek:  Water striders again on the water.  And flitting along the path, a lavender butterfly, a little smaller than a cabbage butterfly; I see another one later up by the wigwams.  I don’t see anything like it in Audubon’s comprehensive field guide to wetlands.  On the side path along the old orchard, I see what I think are already shoots of golden rod and blackberries, or dewberries, coming up.  Down by the creek, I forget to look for the white flowers.

The Fetch:  When I get to the clearing, by the reverse way I usually do, Mway is not there, and I have to call her.  But she soon comes, with a smile on her face.  Only 2 fetches, though.