January 30, 2010. Saturday.
Situation: Work tonight. Take Mway out about 3.
State of the Path: The mud is all frozen: it has become just dirt, a tan color. Moi’s garden pond is still full, and the water in it is frozen, and there are frozen puddles in the path in front of it (the chicken coop nearby used to be a spring house; so this area is always wet when aquifers are high). Elsewhere along the path, the puddles and little ponds are frozen. I take the side path along the old orchard. Rabbits have chewed the bark off at the bottoms of a few sumac saplings. Some white corn husks have blown into the old orchard from Hutchinson’s field. I’m impressed with how flattened the grass is in bug land.
State of the Creek: Slowly getting more ice, though the water is still flowing in the rocky areas. The ice that I could break with my stick yesterday is now too thick to puncture. Because the mud is now frozen, I venture across the feed channel to the skating pond, not stepping on the ice in it, but using the footholds along the side. I don’t see any water in the skating pond, but the grass and weeds in it are so high, they could be hiding any water. I note some brown catty-nine tails in the pond. I spot a golf ball from one of our neighbors sitting in the washed out bank across the creek. We’ve already collected a number of lost golf balls, but it would be too hard for me to cross the creek today to get this one.
The Fetch: Up at the clearing, Mway is waiting for me, smiling, and ready to spring. I throw the stick once toward the exit to the clearing, Mway dashes after it, and pretty soon I lose track of how many times I’m throwing the stick, this way, that way, Mway fetching one time after another. Eventually I’m even a little winded.
