Flycatcher? Phoebe? Chickadee?

October 16, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Because Moi and Mway were taking their naps, I went to lie down myself, was reaching that place between waking and sleep when one seems almost aware of one’s unconsiousness, of what it must be like to be nonexistent, when with a start I turn to look at the clock, suddenly fearful that it might be getting late before I have to go to work.  It says quarter to three, but it seems hard for me to believe that it’s not later, and I spring from my bed, go downstairs to pour myself what remains of the coffee from this morning and start writing this, no sooner doing so than Moi bursting out her door with Mway behind, giving me my cue to go and put on my walking clothes.  I should mention before I write anything else that yesterday around suppertime Woody ventured out into the middle of the kitchen floor, partly to play with a marble that Moi had played with him the night before – Mway treated him with the respect due to another animal of the household, while Squeak perched on the tops of the refrigerator and the counter staring at him for about an hour.

State of the Path:  At first I can’t find the birch branch, but then I see it in the yard.  Mway sniffs around the outbuilding.  Beyond the disc harrow sits a metal boxspring propped up against something.  Around the cedar tree flies a least flycatcher or an eastern phoebe – or maybe it’s a black-capped chickadee.  Whatever it is, it’s common enough around I’d like to make a more positive identification of it sometime.  When I step on the plank down by the wigwams, which seems very sturdy but doesn’t have any apparent function, I ask myself why I don’t switch this with the plank across the feed channel – I wonder if Moi has plans for it.  A slight wind rustles the maple leaves, cicadas drone, a woman occasionally speaks over a loudspeaker at the tractor pull on O__ C_____ Road.  Down by the creek, in a dead multiflora sprawling half-way up a tree, sits a cardinal – at least I thinks it’s a cardinal.  Two other birds join it – all I see are the forms of birds and a white streak.  The asters at the swale have shriveled (but later I see some still open along the ridge).  The plank draws me toward the feed channel.  I walk across it face forward, walk back the same way.  As I brush through goldenrod, their seeds spray out around me – or it might be gnat-like bugs stirring, or both.

State of the Creek:  The creek looks soupy, with newly fallen leaves like peas and carrots lying both on top of the water and underneath in the silt.  A couple minnows dart in the pool beneath the big locusts.

The Fetch:  I toss the stick into the taller goldenrod, and I realize that, when she thinks about it, Mway always follows the path she’s already beaten down, which indeed is getting too beaten down.  Only when she gets very excited, starts spinning around, and doesn’t think about it, does she help me trample down the goldenrod where it needs it.  Coming back into the yard, I kick out of the dead leaves a pair of garden shears; these look like something Moi could use, I think, and I carry them back to the house.