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)

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Hedge Garlic Eyebrow High

May 17, 2010.  Monday.
Situation:  Work late morning, early afternoon.  When I get home about 3:30, I mow the lawn, lucky to get the mower started and get the whole lawn mowed before any rain comes down.  Immediately after, I take Mway for her walk about 5:30.
State of the Path:  I’m tired after mowing the lawn so I just take the main path down to the creek and back.  Some of the hedge garlic is eyebrow high now.  See a robin running down the path.  Note that there is a many-trunked maple growing at the edge of the sumacs.  On the main path between the sumacs and the maples (which I don’t often take, because I usually take the side path along the orchard), seems there’s a lot of grass and wild mustard crowding the path.  Before the pin oaks and along the seeps of bug land, I note green flowers starting to come out on the shrubs there – I’ve been wondering what these shrubs are, because I know they’re not honeysuckles or Russian olives; I suspect they’re elderberry shrubs, and the green flowers look to me like they could turn into elderberries eventually – I’ll have to keep an eye out.  Coming up along the ridge around bug land, I look back at the trees along the creek, and see so many trees with white flowers on them now.  Moi tells me these are locust trees – I’ve determined myself that there are two locust trees down by the creek, but I didn’t realize there were this many, and of course I have no idea what kind of locusts these are – again I’ll have to keep a watch on these.  Here and there I think I see new types of wildflowers coming up – but it’s too much for me to take in, so I just walk by and postpone any attempt at identification for another day.
State of the Creek:  Don’t look too much at the creek today, except to note that lying on top of the still pools of water are a lot of fallen flowers – probably petals off the many honeysuckle bushes that, even though I’ve trimmed many of them, just seem to get bushier and bushier everyday.
The Fetch:  Bring the “pro-quality” stick today because it was the only one on the bench, though I must have mowed over about ten sticks that Mway has left lying about in the yard.   On the first fetch, Mway lugs the big stick back, drops it, then picks it up and flings it at my feet so it whacks my lower legs.  After that she only fetches the stick one more time, and I’m glad about that.

2 comments:

sisyphus gregor said...

And we can see the same expansion of concepts when you’re learning new words. The distinction between singing and howling, for example.

Anonymous said...

That’s right. Before I knew the words “singing” and “howling,” there was just one concept for me, which could be paraphrased as something like “making sounds with your voice for the sake of making sounds with your voice.” But then once the distinction is made, the trick is then to know when to apply the word “singing” to howling and the word “howling” to singing. M.