Quick Look at the Boy's Fort

September 4, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  I’m glad I waited until today to mow the lawn.  A cold front has moved in and it feels almost like a fall day.  Indeed the black walnut leaves, always the last to come in and the first to go, are starting to turn yellow and fall; they clogged the basket to the pool filter, as Moi discovered early this morning.  Mowing always gives me a chance to see some wildflowers I don’t see much of, if at all, in the fields:  Pennsylvania smartweed under the picnic tables, chicory on the lane by the summer house, and a couple late summer dandelions.  I finish up at 3:30, and call Mway for a walk.  She had expected one when I put on my boots to mow; she’s now sitting under the kitchen table, ignoring that I’m putting back on my gloves after washing my hands, not quite sure it’s really time for a walk.

State of the Path:  I go again to visit the dump mound, and then I brush my way through some shrubs and step over a big piece of metal buried in the dirt to take a quick look at the Boy’s fort.  He did a very good job building this thing many years ago; I’d love to go up it, but it hardly looks safe.  Lots of monkey vine around: I tug at one, but it seems very brittle.  At the back hedgerow, the wind picks up, whistling through the holes of my safari helmet.  At the juncture to the main path, I look up the main path where I haven’t walked in a while; it looks almost impassible with weeds (and this is in a dry year).  Not many insects out today, but a bumblebee or two and a brown butterfly poke at the jewelweed at bug land.  I had just been thinking I don’t see much Pennsylvania smartweed on my walks, when down along the creek, amidst the unflowering dayflowers, a bunch of smartweed spreads out before me.  At the big locust trees, a dead multiflora branch snags onto me and I have to pull the damn thing off my shoulder.  I go to look in the feed channel – a couple more asters have bloomed in the ditch.  Ironweed is still in bloom, but most of the first flowers in bug land have dried and turned brown.   Big dark clouds blow across the sky, but there’s been no sign of rain.  I pass through the break in the ridge, brush my way through briars toward the strawberry patch.  Coming up through the goldenrod toward the clearing, the wind picks up again.  The yellow and green spikes begin swaying in every direction.  I can’t hear anything but the whoosh of air.  I start to feel dizzy, lose my sense of balance, motion, and space, and fear I’m going to topple over.

State of the Creek:  At the tree stand, Mway goes into the puddle.  Enough water to slurp, barely enough to splash in.

The Fetch:  The wind has stopped when I make it to the clearing.  Some yarrow and wild carrot at the edge of the dead brown grass stick up where I stand.  More fetches than I care to toss.  The squeal’s gone from Mway’s bark.  At one point I turn around to head back to the house, but Mway just stands with the stick in her mouth, and I feel obliged to turn back around, say “put it down,” and keep up with the tossing.  Finally, after a toss I make in the direction of the “chokeberry” bush, Mway dashes after the stick and pauses before picking it up, her head bobbing like she’s catching her breath.  Okay, I think, that’s a definite sign we’re done.