Distinguish an Elderberry from Other Shrubs

May 29, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi and I both work at separate places tonight.  I have to leave at 3, so I take Mway out about 1:30.  The Boy came home this weekend, and while we were all out in the yard trying to get the pool ready, he threw a stick to Mway, who on the first fetch chewed it to pieces, then set to barking waiting for a now nonexistent stick to be thrown again.

State of the Path:  Note berries coming out on the honeysuckles.  In the middle of the field, I see a single shrub with clusters of white flowers that looks to me pretty much like an elderberry, which means that the shrubs down at bug land that I thought might be elderberries are something else all together.  Later when I’m coming up from the creek, I notice that the shrubs I’ve been calling red willows (because that’s what Moi calls them) have the same as yet green flowers like the shrubs over on the far side of bug land, meaning those are red willows, or whatever, over there too.  The poison ivy has taken over in the strawberry field, and I don’t see any fruit on the strawberries (why there should be so much poison ivy here I don’t know, because there’s no dead wood around for it to feed on).

State of the Creek:  Mway splashes and snorts in the water at one end of the creek, and then later, does the same at the other end down at the crest of the skating pond.  See the mud stirred up in the water as she steps out wet on shore.  Other than that, no sound from the shallow brown water except for the plop of a few frightened frogs.

The Fetch:  Mway walks the whole length of the clearing then almost starts down the path along the sumacs without stopping to fetch a stick.  I have to call out to her to stop.  Is this because she figures she already fetched enough earlier with the Boy, or is it because it’s so hot.  I am certainly hot and sweating – it’s not necessarily pleasant to walk through a Pennsylvania field in the middle of a hot day.  Mway does turn around, and goes after the “pro-quality” stick that I’ve tossed toward the bushes, then comes running back, looking at me out of the sly of her eye with that look that says “I’m only fetching this stick one time today, I hope you don’t mind.”