I Should Have "Water Pants"

October 4, 2010.   Monday.

Situation:   Moi had hoped to finish up closing up the pool today, but it’s chilly and rainy outside, so she’s postponed the task for later in the week.  I have no work today (at least none I get directly paid for).  So after reading Russell on Schopenhauer, followed by a short nap, I’m ready to take Mway for a walk.  It’s 3:22, and I just heard Moi open the door to her room, which means she and Mway are done with their naps too.

State of the Path:  It’s cold enough to wear my father’s denim jacket.  As I’m putting it on, Moi says to me, “You’re going to freeze.  You should have water pants.”  “I know,” I reply, wondering to myself what “water pants” are.  Out on the path, where I’ve clipped a couple days ago, there’s already other goldenrod stems bent over into the path.  I break these as I walk along. But thanks to my clipping, I don’t get as wet as I otherwise would.  I think about taking both side paths today because Russell has written that Schopenhauer took a two-hour walk everyday, whereas most of my walks with Mway last only about 30 to 45 minutes.  But when Mway keeps straight on the main path, I decide to follow straight behind her – I haven’t clipped on the side path and I don’t want to get any wetter than I have to.  A bunch of little brown birds fly through the bare branches of the sumacs, and then I catch a good sight of a bird in the same branches that I think might be a black-capped chickadee (mainly because the name comes to mind).  It’s hard to note its features as it’s moving, but it has almost a bluish-greenish head I think, a white breast or at least a white crest, brown wings (or maybe brown and white wings), and when it flies it prominently shows white tail feathers.  I don’t hear it calling.  As I look in Audubon now, I see that what I saw looks not at all like the photo of a black-capped chickadee, but as I leaf through the “perching birds” section I come across a couple least-objectionable candidates (the only birds with a bluish-greenish head are grackles, but maybe I misjudged the color).  The candidates are the least flycatcher and the eastern phoebe.  Both are described as dull olive-green or dull olive-gray (pretty close to bluish-greenish).  Only the phoebe has an eye-ring, and of course I didn’t note anything about an eye-ring, one way or the other.  Down at the creek, I stop suddenly because I think I hear something moving, then I realize it’s a multiflora branch scratching against my helmet.  Along the narrows, I note on the ground things that looks like slices of baby zucchini.  When I poke them with my walking stick and flip them over, they look like the caps of acorns.  The tree under which I first find them, though, doesn’t look like an oak tree, but there’s a big oak tree on the other side of the creek, and maybe they’ve come from it.  Down by the creek, the rain starts to come down harder, and I think I better move fast.

State of the Creek:  Flowing smoothly, nice and clear, still dragging along grass underwater.  The big log at the log jam seems like it shifted more into the center of the creek bed.  Mway doesn’t step in the water – she probably knows it’s too cold for her.  I’d like to go over and see what the creek looks like down by the car tire, but when I get to the feed channel I decide against it: there’s some water in the ditch, the New York or New England asters, looking somewhat scraggly, hide any good sight of the footholds, and I fear, if I don’t fall into the ditch, I’ll surely fall against the wet honeysuckle bush on the other side.

The Fetch:  The rain has let up by the time we get to the strawberry patch.  Usually I don’t see her milling around there, but today Mway’s looking around there for something.  When she sees me heading to the clearing, though, she runs over to overtake me and get to the clearing first.  She fetches the stick more times than I care to count.  When she coaxes me to play “Put it down,” I suddenly become real animated about it and shout “put it down” very loudly.  Mway likes this and gets even more excited than usual, and we end up playing “Put it down” more times than we’ve ever played it – at least in some time.  And though most of the time I throw the stick within the clearing (to utilize Mway in beating down the weeds), I even throw it out farther into the higher goldenrod a number of times.  I don’t know how long Mway would have kept going; finally, after who knows how many tosses, I have to finally turn around and say “good enough.”