April 28, 2010. Wednesday.
Situation: Moi and I both work today; I also work tonight. I take Mway out shortly after Moi leaves, around 8:15.
State of the Path: Last night I felt I made a great deal of progress toward identifying the shrubs on our land, but as I walk along today I see there’s much more to learn. There seems to be one prevalent shrub, which might be the Morrow’s, but along the old orchard and in the area of the monkey vines and the boxelders, there seems to be a few shrubs of another type of honeysuckle that clusters right next to what I’ll call for now the Morrow’s. Then down by the creek, among the big trees, where the Morrow’s crowd around the trunks of the trees, I spot a honeysuckle closest to bug land, which seems to be sporting pink flowers. It’s cold this morning so the flowers are somewhat closed, and I hope on a warmer day to clear up my confusion. Throughout bug land, there is yet another type of shrub: this might be what Moi has been calling Russian olive, but again I’m not quite sure.
State of the Creek: Running slowly, quietly, and brown today.
The Fetch: When I reach the clearing, Mway has wandered down through the field, and I have to call her to come up to the clearing. Today I have the gnarled stick, which yesterday I thought to myself I like as much as the “pro-quality” stick I used for so many weeks: its gnarls are enjoyable to grip, and the burl makes the stick fly through the air nicely. But on about the fifth toss the stick, stressed by Mway chomping on it, breaks apart into two pieces. The half-piece that Mway brings back to me is just a little bit too small for me to enjoy throwing.
7 comments:
You write that a dog does not hear words. Does this remain true even as you improve your reading skills?
For the most part, yes. Spoken language is largely gibberish to a dog. The language that is a precursor to reading for a dog is the language of scents. As I said before, a dog mainly reads by smell – so it can even read in the dark. I do a lot of my reading while you and Moi are wasting a third of your lives getting a good night’s sleep. Incidentally, at one point in Travels with Charley, Steinbeck and his dog have a conversation. This is quite astonishing, and you can only conclude that Steinbeck is deliberately lying or has gone off his rocker, until you realize that Steinbeck is transcribing the wags of Charley’s tail. M.
I don't know why this keeps coming up with your name. I'm sure I'm pressing the right buttons. This is not you. M.
I don’t know what’s going on, if this is a temporary glitch or if Blogger has some diabolical reason for preventing you from further selecting “Anonymous.” We’ll see if it clears up tomorrow.
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