Wonder If Pin Oaks Are Actually Black Oaks

October 19, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  Moi tells me that the other day she ran into our neighbors the Schmidts at the grocery store.  We only know their names because they were among the first people to move into the development around us 14 or so years ago, and we had to tell them that they couldn’t build on our right-of-way to the main road.  They moved into one house, then moved to another, oddly, closer to us, the house that sits above the end of our lane.  Moi tells me they were buying cat food; apparently they have adopted the gray stray cat that we’ve seen a couple times poking around our lane.  “They greeted me with smiles,” Moi says, “and they said they like our chickens – like seeing them when they wander down the lane.”  I work in the afternoon, and when I get home about 4:30, the chickens greet me at the car, Mway smiles at me from the porch.  Inside, Moi tells me Squeak and Woody were actually playing today, “though Squeak was getting a little rough.”  They played paw-fights around a post in the kitchen and peek-a-boo around a shirt draped over a kitchen chair.

State of the Path:  Although the birch branch is right in front of the door, I opt to bring the long crooked stick   While I’m going in and out of the house (because I keep forgetting things: my denim jacket, my gloves), Mway runs after a few chickens, and I have to yell at her.  Beneath the big maple by the pool, a hen is sitting beside four new peeps.  Out in the old orchard, I spot something white on the ground that looks like a sheet of white plastic; I can’t tell what it is partly because my contacts are wearing out, and I realize I should finally throw out the present pair and start wearing new ones.  Adding to the red in the fields are the many blackberry leaves that have turned a dark red.  The leaves on the pin oaks look to me today like they’re too wide to be pin oak leaves, and I start to wonder if they’re actually black oaks; I realize that I’m going to have to bring an Audubon with me some time soon and study the oaks.  A cardinal darts behind a honeysuckle bush on the other side of the creek.  Beyond the swale, a fairly large bird flies out of a small oak; I don’t get a good look at it.  I think about walking across the plank, but I decide not to.  I hear crows cawing.

State of the Creek:  Between a bare black walnut and the big locusts, there’s a straight stretch of the creek where the water looks almost black, and it looks like there’s dead brown grass waving underneath the water.  I can’t tell for sure; the light is growing dim.  A few lady’s thumbs still stick out of the water.

The Fetch:  I stand in the same spot I did yesterday and throw the long crooked stick in the same patch of goldenrod.  On the first toss, Mway seems to be struggling so much with the stick in the weeds that I walk over to see if there really is a bush or something growing there.  I don’t see anything, and I suspect that the stick is just so long and crooked that it gets caught up in the goldenrod more than the birch branch would.  Mway gets a lot of grit on her tougue, and her tongue hangs a lot out of the side of her mouth.  After I don’t know how many fetches, Mway sits down in the weeds, chomping and growling at the stick.  I figure she’s had enough, so I walk over toward her, but then she coaxes me to play “Put it down” once.  When she brings it back, she sits again, growling and chomping, but this time I say “That’s enough.”