What to Make of All These Vines

August 21, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Yesterday while I was leafing through the Audubon, trying to identify the little pink flowers, I came upon an entry for kudzu vine, and the name rang a bell.  I think this is the name Moi once called all the vines I’ve been calling, rather informally, grape vines; and indeed the leaves in the photo look a lot like what I see growing all around, climbing up trees, clambering over bushes, and sprawling into the goldenrod.  So far this year I’ve yet to see any flowers on this vine, but Audubon says this vine “rarely flowers north of Virginia,” which is encouraging evidence.  By the way Audubon describes the flower of the kudzu vine as “pea-like” and ovoid, and I think this kind of describes the little pink flower I was looking at yesterday: I bet it’s some kind of pea, but I hesitate yet to select any of the examples I see in the book.   Forget what I’ve been saying.  I just asked Moi if she once called those vines kudzu vines; “No, no,” she replied, “I know what kudzu vines are.  We don’t have any.”  “What do you call those vines out there?” I ask.  “Monkey vines,” she says, “Look it up on the computer, if that’s what you call them somebody else will call them that.  Monkey vine, or wild grape vine.”   After awhile, Moi takes me out to the chicken coop where she thinks there might be a kudzu vine growing.  It turns out to be, as even Moi realizes, just a young pokeweed.  But out there we discover another new blue wildflower growing along the coop, with spiked, enfolded leaves.  I’m excited about it because it reminds me of the plants I’ve seen growing along the creek since spring, albeit without flowers (and which I thought might be some kind of grass), and I’m thinking this might be the same thing.  I manage to find a photo in Audubon that looks like what we’re looking at: Asiatic dayflower; and I think this is that or some sort of related dayflower, like the slender dayflower (no photo of that).  These flowers, like the name indicates, only bloom for a day, and I’m anxious to go down to the creek to see what I may find. Moi and I go to the side of the house, where there happens to be a wild grape vine; Moi has said that we seldom see grapes on these vines, but as we’re looking at this one, we see one grape-like berry hanging.  Right now, Moi and Mway have gone to the bedroom to take a nap.  Moi has asked me to chop down some weeds along the house so she can put up a ladder to paint; that’s going to take a lot of work, and then I’ll want to take Mway for a walk afterward (taking the Audubon with me).  So I’m waiting for them to get up from their naps, then I’ll do all that, before going to work with Moi tonight.

State of the Path:  By the time I get done cutting down what is mostly vines (including some poison ivy climbing up the foundation), it’s 3:30, and Mway and I set off on the path.  We have wild grape vines all over the place, but they are most predominant along the old orchard.  Indeed today I note a wild grape vine covering a small black walnut that has leaves the size of dinner plates.  Past the two anthills and just before the boxelders, there are a number of swingable monkey vines; if I haven’t mentioned this before, the path cuts through two monkey vines that form a kind of portal that you have to step through every time you come this way.  If I haven’t mentioned this before, I’m amazed by that, because this is one of my favorite things along the path.  Down by the creek, my hopes build as I approach the stream bank looking for dayflowers, but although I see a lot of the plants that I think are dayflowers (some of it scraggly from the heat), I don’t see one flower. I do see a mushroom, and I wish I knew what kind it was because I’d love to eat it.  Coming up from the swale through the “chokeberries,” my eye falls on the little pink flower.  I try not to think about it, when a couple feet beyond, I spot a second plant of the same thing.  So I whip off my gloves and open up the Audubon, and turn over the tiny little pink flowers, careful not to touch the poison ivy around it.  I really would like to say that these are spurred butterfly peas (the leaves look like the leaves in the photo for just plain butterfly peas).  The flowers look like they’re turned upside down like they’re supposed to be – at least I can’t tell which way is up and which way is down, but the flowers are so tiny, only maybe ¼ inch compared to the ¾ to 1 and ½ inches stated by Audubon.

State of the Creek:  The puddle under the black walnut tree is gone.  Vinyl siding about three feet away from the edge of the water.

The Fetch:  I really don’t feel like tossing the stick today, and I’m relieved when Mway makes only about four fetches.

Think I Hear a Bullfrog

August 13, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  I have to work tonight and probably should work a little also this afternoon, so I might as well take Mway for a walk this morning.  Moi has already taken her out to throw stick.  She tells me that the path is wet, since it’s been raining, I guess, all night – but a wet path is, of course, no obstacle to me.  I’ll go barefooted in my boots again.  It’s 9:41.

State of the Path:  My walking clothes are damp when I put them on.  Mway is relaxing on the porch after throwing stick with Moi, and looks up at me bug-eyed, surprised to see me.  But she’s soon smiling as she runs and circles the yard, heading to meet me at the path.  I admit I feel a little uncomfortable in my damp clothes, and when I reach the path beyond the walled garden, the idea of walking through wet weeds seems unpleasant to me, so I start whacking at the goldenrod, briars, and giant ragweed with the “pro-quality” stick.  It’s a half-assed job, but it makes me feel like I might stay a little drier than I otherwise would.  Down at the grasses in bug land, I can feel my bare feet sloshing around in my boots.  As I approach the creek, I think I hear a bullfrog, but after a few steps, I realize it’s my feet making a burping sound against the wet rubber of my boots.  I think I hear the whine of another mosquito.  Along the creek, I look at the plant that’s winding around the jewelweed and see that it’s also winding around some goldenrod that I’ve started whacking at.  I wonder if the plant’s some kind of bindweed.  Its little white flowers, or maybe they’re just white buds, grow all along its stringy, winding stem – and they look almost like fungus or coral.

State of the Creek:  Beneath the tree stand, Mway ventures into the creek bed – I hear the clacking of rocks.  Whatever rain we had last night must be soaking into the ground; it hasn’t raised the level of the creek much.  The creek is still a series of disconnected pools, with muddy opaque water in them.  The pool at the narrows has crept closer to the vinyl siding.  I walk over to the feed channel to the skating pond and see there’s no water in it.  Mway meets up with me as I’m stepping through the poison ivy beneath the “chokeberries.”

The Fetch:  She runs ahead of me and is there to greet me at the clearing.  I suspect she will only make one fetch, but it’s hard to tell: she prances about and looks up at me with an eager smile.  I toss the stick – will she bring it back and drop it at my feet?  No, she goes running toward the path along the sumacs and heads back to the house, having to adjust the stick in her mouth once or twice after it gets knocked cock-eyed by the weeds along the path.

Wonder about Toothed, Untoothed, Leaves

August 5, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  I have to work both tonight and this afternoon, or, as Moi would put it, as soon as I can get my ass moving.  I’m going to take Mway for a walk now.  It’s 10:21.  I already spent an hour or more online searching black chokeberries, and I’ve gathered quite a bit of information, helpful or not I don’t know: “leaves are alternate, simple, oblanceolate with crenate margins and pinnate venation; leaves have terminal glands on leaf teeth and glabrous underside.”

State of the Path:  Quick jaunt down to the creek and back.  Note two boneset plants right at the pig pen.  At the start of bug land, look again at the “black chokeberry bush,” looming over 8 feet tall.  Putting aside the question of the flowers, which I don’t remember anything about now, this plant would fit the bill for “black chokeberry,” except its leaves don’t look toothed.  Just how toothed are these leaves suppose to be?  Then when I get to the swale from bug land, where there are a lot of these bushes, I run into a bush that does have toothed leaves.  I look around me, and I see a couple of these bushes with toothed leaves, but none of them have berries, and they are surrounded by bushes with berries, but with leaves that don’t look toothed.  What am I suppose to make of this?

State of the Creek:  Though there was a brief storm last night, it didn’t put any more water into the creek.  Vinyl siding still between 2 and 3 feet away from the edge of the water.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, two small plants with big white flowers.  “Damn it,” I think, “Another plant to find the name for.”  Just one fetch – and that’s good.  Got to get my ass moving.

In a Hurry

January 13, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation.  Around 3, take Mway out for a walk, just a quick one so I can shower, get dressed, and leave for work around 4. 

State of the Path and the Creek.  Seems to be just a little less snow on the ground than yesterday, same amount of ice in the creek.   Mway wanders off for a little while to peak into Moi’s old wigwam. 

The Fetch.  Fortunately, Mway keeps to her new habit of limiting her number of fetches to two.  But when I follow her home to the back door, she’s standing in front of it without her stick.  I open up my arms and exclaim “Where’s your stick?”  Mway, though, not to be caught off guard, knows exactly what I’m asking and precisely how to answer it.   She scoots off the porch, dashes to the pool, finds her stick (still the big one we’ve been using for a week or so now), drags it back and drops it at the door.

Expanding the Area

December 29, 2009.  Tuesday.

Situation:  Work this afternoon, and don’t get home till a little after 4.  Still, Mwayla skulks around the kitchen, follows me furtively up the stairs: she expects to have an afternoon walk.  I change into my walking clothes -- old jeans, a work shirt, and white socks that I only wear for the walk -- then put on my boots and snow suit.  Mway paces around the table, her whines of anticipation building up into huffs of impatience.

State of the Path.  The ground is frozen hard, not waxy like yesterday; it is only crunchy down by bug land where the mud, now frozen, had been whipped up and pitted by Mway walking over it on warmer days.  Only in one spot is the mud soft: where a seep apparently keeps the mud from freezing.  Because of the cold, I want to take a short walk, so I avoid both side paths, along the old orchard and by the failed skating pond; simply make the circuit down to the creek, along it for a ways, then up to the clearing and back to the house.

State of the Creek:   Ice has crystallized around many of the rocks; in the deeper parts, a thin layer of ice has started to form, which I puncture in two places, with two or three thrusts of my walking stick.   Because of the ice, the creek is quieter today, as it runs in fewer places, mainly at the cascade under the multiflora-choked oaks at the midpoint along the creek.

The Fetch:  It seems that more of the dead goldenrod has been been beaten down by the weather and by Mway, and I think to myself that I can start to expand the area in which I throw Mway’s stick.   I throw it mainly toward the poison-ivy covered pile of cement rubble and back toward the upper part of the clearing, but I don’t yet throw it much farther into the dead goldenrod still standing.  My hands are already numb, and I don’t feel like thinking too hard.  Mway has a little more energy than she did yesterday, but she still only fetches the stick under 10 times before she growls, chomps, and shakes the stick in her mouth, instead of dropping it at my foot, indicating that she has fetched the stick for as long as she wants.