Could It Be Holly?

November 4, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Work tonight.  It’s been raining all day.  Moi made a rain chain for the front porch out of musical symbols (G clef, notes, a measuring cup); the rain doesn’t quite drip down the chain right; still needs tweaking.  Moi and Mway now taking a nap; looks like I’ll be squeezing in a quick walk before I go to work.

State of the Path:  Mway is standing at the bedroom door when I open it.  She springs out the door and dashes down the steps.  The chickens are standing on the front porch.  They must have been there are all day: the porch floor is covered with shit and feathers.  They disperse when Mway rushes out the door.  The white mulberry at the start of the path has dropped most of its golden leaves.  The brown of the goldenrod, looking browner than ever, the green of the honeysuckles, make a striking contrast.  The rain, which had been just a drizzle, picks up for a moment in bug land.  Rainwater drips down my wrist.  I walk faster.  Wet weeds slap my pants, but I’m happy my feet aren’t getting wet.  Pushing through the “chokeberries,” I see one or two green holly-like bushes; could it be holly?  (A friend of Moi’s has just posted a wildflower on Facebook that blooms after the leaves fall: witch hazel.  I take a look at the photo; it’s not what I’ve been seeing.)  As I’m heading up to the clearing, I realize why the goldenrod looks browner: it’s because they’ve lost all their fuzz.

State of the Creek:  The stream is a little higher, and flowing: slowly in the pools, faster in the rock shallows.  As I walk along it, I feel like I’m in a race with it.  I outpace it at the pools, but it beats me at the rapids.  Water courses down the swale and fills the feed channel.

The Fetch:  When I bend down to pick up the birch branch, my wet pants chill my legs.  I get angry with Mway as she just goes on and on with fetching the stick while I’m standing in the rain; finally, I throw the stick deep into the goldenrod between the “chokeberry” and the honeysuckle.  Mway takes a few minutes to find the stick and extract it, and when she comes back holding it in her mouth, expecting me to go to level 2, I tell her “that’s enough.”