Moi Comes Along to Help Identify Things

April 5, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  Work this afternoon, get home and take Mway out about 5.  Moi comes along, in particular to look at the tree with the long seed strings in the old orchard.  I bring the binoculuars.

State of the Path:  Walking from the walled garden, Moi worries that the chickens will follow us down the path.  “Just move quickly,” I say, “They won’t follow too far.”  I show Moi the tree – she thinks it might be some kind of ash, and she is intrigued that it bloomed so early.  I point out some of the ghost flowers.  “I think maybe it’s just white clover at an early stage,” I say.  “No,” Moi disagrees, “It doesn’t look like clover.”  I point out to her all the green shrubs around.  “Why do you call these wild olive shrubs?” I ask, since I’ve never seen that listed in Audubon.  “Russian olive,” she corrects me, “Some of them are Russian olive, and some are honeysuckle.”  Down by the creek, I point out the skunk cabbage, the may apples, and the trout lily leaves – and then suddenly we both realize, all along the creek, so many of the trout lilies have blossomed, showing their yellow flowers.  Then, after we’ve walked the plank across the drainage area to bug land, to my surprise, Moi steps into my foot holds over the feed channel and ventures along the skating pond; I follow, telling her I haven’t been able to find any of the colt’s foot she mentioned.  “No,” she says, “They don’t come up here.  They’re usually by the bank over there,” and she starts back over the feed channel.  I start to follow, then realize I’m stepping on some new small purple flowers, and I call Moi back.  “That’s point blue-eyed grass,” she says.  Then we both walk over by the pond between the ridges where Moi says the colt’s foot comes up.  “Maybe it’s gotten too shady for it to come up here,” she says.

State of the Creek:  A little water is still trickling into bug land up by the wigwams, and flowing from bug land into the creek.  As we walk along, Moi asks me if I think the creek has gotten wider.  I don’t think it has.  “I think it has,” she insists.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I move to the far end to throw the stick, Moi standing nearby.  But Mway has stopped in the middle of the weeds in the field and is sniffing the ground, and I have to call her up.  “Maybe she’s found something,” Moi says.  Mway responds promply to my call, and comes running up through the weeds, smiling, into the clearing.  I raise my stick behind me to give it a good toss, when I hear a loud whack, and Moi yelling.  I look around me, and she is clutching her elbow.  “Did I hit you,” I shout.  “Yes,” she shouts, and starts walking on the path back to the house.  “Are you okay?”  I ask.  But Mway is waiting for me to throw the stick, and I give it a toss.  3 fetches.  Back in the back yard, Moi is leading the chickens back into their cage.  Mway is standing in the yard, without her stick, and anxious about the movement of the chickens.  She picks up another stick, and jostles it to coax me to throw it, but I walk over to the porch.  I see that she has dropped the other stick at the door, and I pick it up and lean it against the house along with my walking stick because Moi is concerned that our wild bees, which for years now have nested in one of our chimneys, have strayed to the bench, and she is going to move the bench tonight by the chimney, to urge them toward their usual nesting place.