Sample a Raspberry, Look at Mullein Again, Plus Ragweed, Burdock, Crown Vetch, Atlas, and Unidentifiable Things

June 15, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  Have to work this afternoon, Moi is down at Jazz’s, so the morning walk, along with several other chores, is up to me.  I take Mway out about  11.

State of the Path:  I decide to take the side path along the old orchard; yesterday when I was walking down the main path, I could barely see where the side path joins up with it: so I want to walk this side path as often as possible to keep it trampled down – it would be nice to keep it clear all summer.  The black raspberries are still ripening – I sample the blackest one I see, and it tastes good, but I think in a few days they will be sweeter.  I look at my mullein; definitely pinkish flowers that do not match the moth mullein in Audubon.  I look for the milkweed, but I can’t find it, and I can’t believe this abundantly flowering plant could have disappeared over night.  Then I notice that Moi, I guess, beat down a path to the frame of her new wigwam, just around where I believe the milkweed was: would she have knocked down the milkweed, so beautifully flowering, in the process?  Down by the creek, I sample a few more raspberries; there are blacker ones down there.  More touch-me-nots, especially down by the creek, are coming out; I’m still surprised that they are flowering this early in the season.

State of the Creek:  You have to look closely to see the water trickling between the rocks.  But the many pools, one or two of which Mway regularly seeks out to cool off in, are still brown and robust.  I look for signs of duckweed, as I had seen some growing earlier in the spring.  But I believe the season has been too dry for duckweed to flourish this year.

The Fetch:  I stand just in front of the most trampled area, again to help clear more of the weeds in the clearing, and between me stamping around and Mway spinning about, we’re doing a good job of keeping the goldenrod from overtaking the whole clearing.  On the way back past the sumacs and through the briars, I see one tiny, but very strikingly pink to lavender flower, sticking out of the brambles;  it’s so tiny and so inconspicuous among the brambles that I hold little hope of ever identifying it.

Addendum:  I didn’t expect to take Mway out for an afternoon walk, but when I come back from work about 4:30, Moi is out in the yard with Jazz’s German shepherd, Atlas, who Moi has reluctantly agreed to watch while Jazz and Matt are on their honeymoon (she has also agreed to watch her cats, but is keeping them down at, and making periodic visits to, the kids’ house, because the one cat, Spook, has never been trained to pee or poop in a litter box).   My plans are to mow the lawn, but Moi asks me to take Mway for a walk, and she explains to me that she doesn’t want Atlas to go along or run free because she’s afraid the big dog might wander over to one of our neighbors’ houses.  So I decide to take Mway for just a quick walk to the clearing.  We go down the seldom used path along the summer house, between the day lilies, greeted by a giant ragweed and meeting amidst the lilies five or so burdock plants the size of lawn chairs, then go past the pile of tree trunks and down through a field chocked with goldenrod, with an understory of poison ivy.  Mway is especially diligent about fetching the stick (and I suspect secretly relieved that Atlas has not come along; I hear Atlas, chained up beneath the clothesline, echoing Mwayla’s barks across the field of weeds).  After we come back to the house, I begin to mow the lawn.  One advantage of not getting much rain is that the lawn becomes relatively easy to mow; and I have the patience to look at some of the wild plants that are coming up around the house.  Along the perimeter of the lawn, I see a lot of black raspberries growing, some of the brambles of which arch out into the lawn and get caught in the mower or scrape against me.   Along the lane in front of the house (which was intended to be a shale road but which grass has overtaken and consequently has to be mowed), I recognize, from the research I did on honeysuckles, that the vine growing along the lane and now sporting tubular flowers with long stamen is Japanese honeysuckle.  Along the lane below the summer house, I spot some particularly pretty pink and white flowers with locust-like leaves which I’m later able to identify, to my surprise, as crown vetch (I’m of course familiar with crown vetch from a distance along highways, but I never knew we had it growing here or ever looked at it up close).  Growing out of some shale that has remained bare in the lane is a picture-perfect specimen (I’m well prepared to make the identification) of a moth mullein, complete with its white flowers with its brownish-purple markings, unlike the pink flowers of the who-knows-what-kind of mullein I’ve been seeing down on the path.  Also growing out of the shale, I see some daisy-like flowers, which I will, however, have to check on again, because I’m not sure whether they’re oxeye daisies or mayweed; I also come across a yellow buttercup-like flower, perhaps like the ones I used to see down by the creek, which I’m unable to identify.   When I go in the house for a break and for supper, I learn how stressed out Moi is about having to take care of big undisciplined Atlas.  The dogs have been fighting over food, and when we sit down with our own food in front of the TV, Moi, who has just been screaming at both dogs, finds herself sitting on top of the Audubon wildflower book, which, acting upon her nerves like the proverbial straw on the camel’s back, she picks up and tosses across the room.