The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names. (E. O. Wilson, as cited by Elizabeth J. Rosenthal, Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson)

Monday, May 30, 2011

Happy for Areas of Shade

May 30, 2010.  Sunday.
Situation:  As usual work all day today, and when I get home, about 6:30, it’s still light out.  Moi tells me that today, while clearing weeds around the pool, she encountered a garter snake eating a frog.  She slammed the snake with a shovel, and apparently both animals sped away, each still alive.  When I go to put on my walking gloves, I can’t find them; Moi tells me that she threw them away, and the pair of gardening gloves still remaining on the hutch are mine to use.  Instead of the “pro-quality” stick, I bring along a stick I spied under the lilac bushes while I was getting out of the car.  Lying in front of a burdock with leaves the size of TV trays, the stick looked like a decent one, and I wanted to remove it from near the driveway.
State of the Path:  Although it’s a pleasant early evening, I decide to stick to the main path, particularly when I look down the side path and see the late afternoon sun shining down hard on it.   Past the sumacs, the sun is beating down on the main path too, and I’m happy when I reach the shade under the maples.  I realize that I’m soon going to have to bring clippers again along on a walk.  The honeysuckles in particular, done now with their flowering, seem to be putting all their life into growing their branches, and at the sumacs, and at other places, they are seriously starting to obstruct the path.
State of the Creek:  It’s shady down along the creek too.  Without the sun shining down on it, the creekwater looks almost green, especially where the multiflora shrubs arch over it, or where there’s moss, or whatever, growing among the bottom rocks.
The Fetch:  When I get up to the clearing, the sun is blazing again.  Instead of standing and waiting for me, as she usually does, Mway is wandering through the goldenrod at the clearing’s edge.  Here the plants are that high that Mway can’t be seen: I hear the swish of the weeds, see nothing but the swaying plants.  Soon, though, Mway clears the weeds and runs over to spin around at my feet as I’m readying to toss the stick, the only spot in the clearing where the weeds are being kept down.  She fetches the lilac stick more times than I care to count.  Back in the back yard, I look at the newly unveiled pool water; although it’s green with algae, Moi says it’s okay to go in, and I think that’s what I’m going to do now.

3 comments:

sisyphus gregor said...

How about today?

Anonymous said...

Yes, this seems good now. Back feels secure. Both front paws hover freely over the keyboard. I feel like I could write Finnegans Wake. M.

sisyphus gregor said...

I’ve been re-reading this blog since I made my last post last December (gives me something to do over my morning coffee). M’s comment here causes me to wonder what exactly her opinion of Finnegans Wake is. Is it the same as Ezra Pound’s and Vladimir Nabokov’s? Her general silence about the book and her tone here (and elsewhere in this blog) suggest to me, on the contrary, that she holds it in high esteem but doesn’t want to admit she doesn’t understand it. If she really had read the book, you’d think at some point she’d cite a passage such as “All we suffered under them Cow-dung Forks and how we enjoyed over our pick of the basketfild. Old Kine’s Meat Meal” or “Bull igien bear and then bearagain bulligan. Gringrin gringrin. Staffs varsus herds and bucks vursus barks. By old Grumbledum’s walls. Bumps, bellows and bawls.” The full significance of this comment will be apparent later.