Dead Tree between Posts of Electric Pole

December 13, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  This morning I had to go to the dentist early to get my filling refilled, so I couldn’t take Mway for a walk in the morning.  Downstairs Moi was on her laptop, spending all morning, I believe, writing more deer hunting stories – it looked like she hadn’t taken Mway for a walk either.  When I got home, I checked my email – no work had come in today.  Mway was pacing around, following me from room to room, staring at me, and I considered taking her for a walk then – but before I could do so she and Moi went upstairs to take a nap.  Right now, it’s 2:59, and I’m waiting for them to get up.  Whenever they do, I’ll take Mway for her walk.

State of the Path:   Out my office window, I see a large cat striding down the lane behind the summer house; perhaps it’s what made the prints in the snow the other day.  I suit up, gather a couple sticks from the music room, one of which I bring along.  Moi has put weather stripping along the back door, and now you have to slam it shut several times before it stays closed.  A cold wind blows against my cheeks and nose.  The snow is gone, but Moi’s garden pond is still frozen.  At the side path, I turn to go on it; Mway, just ahead on the main path, looks behind her, and I mumble “we’re going this way today, Mway.”  Near the hedgerow my wrists start getting cold and my arms start freezing – it was not this cold this morning.  As I past the cedar tree I realize I’m not paying much attention to what’s around me; instead I’m thinking about my plans to post this journal online as a blog, and in my mind I’m pouring over words for an introduction to it.  My plans are to make the last journal entry on the day before Christmas, and then on Christmas day to post the first entry from exactly a year earlier.  The words going through my mind are mainly repetitions of words I’ve already written, although new words slip in now and then.   When I realize I’m not paying attention to what’s around me, I try to start looking around.  I look at some ice on the path down by the wigwams and at an old brown stalk of ironweed, but it’s hard for me to break through the swirl of language in my head.

State of the Creek:  At the tree stand, I look up into Hutchinson’s wood lot, through the two posts of a high tension electric pole, at a dead tree broken in the middle of the trunk with its top half leaning over, all of which is framed neatly, from where I stand, between the two posts.  I’ve been catching a glance of this dead tree, perhaps the most distinctive sight here, on most of my walks lately, but this is the first time I think about mentioning it.  It seems dark around the creek, and despite how cold it is, there’s no ice in the stream.  I spot some gill-of-the-ground, which has bounced back after being covered with snow and doesn’t seem to mind the cold.  I walk quickly, just looking to see if I come across any ice.  There’s none in the puddles in the grasses of bug land, and none in the water trickling down the swale.  Just by looking at it, I can’t tell if the water in the feed channel is frozen or not; but when I poke it with my walking stick, the stick makes a thud.  There’s ice in the puddles on the path along the ridge, which cracks as I walk across it, but there’s no ice in the soggy path on the other side of the ridge.

The Fetch:  As I walk up toward the clearing, cold spittle is forming around my lips and snot building up in my nose.  As soon as I toss the stick, I realize this is a way of keeping warm, and I try to bring my whole body into motion as I toss it, instead of just lackadaisically pitching it underhand.  I wind up for each toss, bringing the stick behind my back, and follow through on the pitch, even though I’m not trying to throw the stick as far as I can.  I go around the circle, flinging the stick into the corners of the roughly rectangular clearing, Mway dashing off in pursuit, snatching up the stick from whatever straggle of weeds in which it landed.   When she brings the stick back, she drops it at my feet, barks and spins once or twice.  If I hold the stick behind me, she stands still, ears erect, tongue draped over her teeth.  If she has to wait too long for me to throw it, she starts barking again.  She goes as far as two pitches into the second round before she brings the stick back and keeps it held in her mouth, gobbling on it.  I tell her to “put it down.”  She drops it, then makes a few more fetches, but when she starts chomping on the stick without dropping it again, I feel the snot gathering heavy in my nostrils and tell her “that’s enough.”