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, June 7, 2011

Wonder What All the Grasses Are

June 7, 2010.  Monday.
Situation:  Work morning and afternoon, and take Mway out when I get back, about 4:30.  Pressing on my mind is that I’d like to mow the lawn this evening, so my walk is not as leisurely as I’d like.
State of the Path:  The Jerusalem artichokes have been coming up for some time now in front of the chickens’ cage.   I forgot to mention before, but I have noticed what indeed look like little mulberries growing on the white mulberry tree near the outbuilding.  Out on the side path, I beat back weeds with the “pro-quality” stick same as I did yesterday, giving up again where the goldenrod is coming up the thickest.  And as I walk along I casually grab whatever weed my gloved hand happens to fall upon and pull up whatever I can.  Of all the wildflowers that I mentioned earlier in the spring, it seems only the fleabane is still out, although I still notice the now rather huge leaves of the jack-in-the-pulpit, and I see, almost hidden under grass by the creek, a couple of the yellow flowers that I think I was never able to identify.  But, except for the elderberries and the red willows, the fields almost seem flowerless at this time of the season.  Another exception of course is the flowers that appear on the grasses, and as I walk along I wish I could identify the various types I see.  The Audubon wildflower book does not include many grasses.  There is timothy mentioned, and I do see some of that, and there is also wool grass mentioned, and I see a lot of different types of grasses that look something like wool grass but not quite.  And then I wonder what type of grass it is that grows so much in bug land and in other areas that remain wet late into the season, such as the skating pond.  Moi says she thinks it’s called red grass, but she’s not sure and tells me to look it up.  But I don’t have time to research this on a day that I have to mow the lawn.  I haven’t yet noticed any black raspberries, but all along the path now, I see green blackberries appearing.  Down by the creek, I see what seems like more areas where the jewelweed has been flattened, and not just by wind or rain:  it seems that they’ve been flattened by deer, but unlike in past years I’ve yet to see a deer on a walk since I’ve started keeping this journal.
State of the Creek:  I hear Mway stepping into the water when we first get to the creek.  Later on, at the crest of the skating pond, I see an area of the creek, about twenty feet wide and that must be filled with water in the spring, that is now almost completely dry.  There is an old tire on the opposite bank.
The Fetch:   I note that the clearing is remaining clearest where Mway spins around as she’s waiting for me to toss the stick.  The weeds are also not so high at the other end of the clearing where the stick lands, and Mway has to hunch down to pick up the stick and turn around.  And then there’s an area in the middle of the clearing that is well beaten down because she takes this route most of the time when bringing the stick back.  Otherwise the clearing is becoming somewhat unclear.

3 comments:

sisyphus gregor said...

Knock it off, M.

Anonymous said...

Do I have to be utterly literal with what I say to you? Okay, in more literal language, here’s what “its utter disconnectedness from reality” means. In the language of scents, the sign has its genesis in the referent, although to function as a sign the referent has to have been absented. At that time the scent’s signified emerges. The word, on the other hand, is not generated by the referent. For a word to function as a sign the referent does not have to have been absented, for it never had to be present in the first place. The signified is part of the word from the beginning (and, what is more, it can be modified in usage). I thought I’d already explained this clearly enough in my treatise. A scent is like an acorn tossed out of sight from an oak. A word is more like your Air Force safari helmet. It sits on your head, doing its job there perfectly, though you’re not at all fighting in the Pacific islands during World War II. Or it could sit on Moi’s head, doing its job there just as well, or on my head, or it could sit on no head at all – that is, on the nonexistent heads of Taxi Dog, the little boy, and the Gingerbread Man. One need only write the word “I,” and suddenly, like a rabbit appearing out of nowhere, something is speaking. M.

Anonymous said...

Come to think of it – my statement, “its utter disconnectedness from reality,” by being false, is a demonstration of its truth. M.