Two-Days-In-One: Pro-quality Stick Cracks

August 22, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today, and when I get home Jazz and Matt and the Boy and Jennifer are here for a cook-out to celebrate Moi’s and my 30^th wedding anniversary.  (At one point I ask Jazz how her job is going.  She says it’s going okay, and she asks me how mine is going.  Then she looks at me square in the face and says, “I’m not really sure what it is you do.”)  No opportunity for me to take Mway for a walk today.  However, while the Boy and I are out firing up the grill, we end up throwing the stick for Mway in the back yard, with Atlas trying to join in.  What happens is that I throw the stick for Mway, and both she and Altas run after it and end up playing tug-of-war with it.  Mway eventually drops her end of the stick, and I end up playing tug-of-war with Atlas to try to get the stick out of his mouth.  The Boy then takes the sides of the stick from me and starts trying to spin the big dog around in circles.  Atlas finally lets go, and as I hold Atlas by his leash, the Boy throws the stick for Mway.  He throws it high in the air, and when it lands, I hear the “pro-quality” stick (which lately has been showing signs of stress) crack.  I tell the Boy I’m trying to preserve the stick for as long as I can, so I give him Atlas to hold and take over throwing the stick, more delicately, for Mway, until she finally tires of it.

August 23, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  Work late morning, early afternoon.  When I get home, Mway is waiting anxiously for a walk. When the Boy and I go out on a shopping errand (to buy a new car stereo I’ve been thinking about buying for a year), she runs along beside us to the car, picks up a stick she finds by the house.  I have to tell her that we’re not taking her for a walk.  When we get home, though, that’s the first thing I do.  It’s about 3:30.

State of the Path:  It’s been drizzling on and off all day, and I check the grass in the yard to see if would be dry enough to mow.  Out on the path, there are raindrops on the weeds, which are bent over and flopped down in the path, and by the time I’m wading through the grass in bug land, my boots and pants are getting a little wet, and I feel a thorn sticking in me at the upper part of my boot.  Near the beginning of the walk, as I squirm around a briar, I use the “pro-quality” stick to support myself, and it gives way a little.  When I look at it, I see it’s cracked half way through at its midpoint – I curse Atlas, whom I blame for putting too much stress on the stick.  As I approach the creek bank, I hope I see some dayflowers blooming, but all the plants that I think are dayflowers are still flowerless – perhaps it’s too shady here under the trees.  But as I’m looking over the green plants I suddenly see a spot of pink, and I realize I’m looking at the same damn plant that I’ve seen by the “chokeberries” and which I would like to believe is some sort of butterfly pea.  The leaves on this plant are bug-eaten, the flowers just as tiny, and they still do not look quite like the photo of spurred butterfly pea in the Audubon.  But seeing this plant gives me hope that I might see more of this plant, and that it might not be so insignificant, although when I look for the other plants by the “chokeberries” I don’t see them today.  Walking along the creek, I again trip over the same root I did the other day – I think it’s a root, at least it looks more like a root to me than a vine, although I can’t tell what it’s a root to.

State of the Creek:  I had forgotten how much it rained late Saturday night into Sunday morning, and I’m delighted and surprised to see the pools higher and water sitting among the rocks all along the creek, even faintly trickling here and there.  The vinyl siding is entirely submerged.  There’s even water winding its way through the wide rocky creek bed at the car tire.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I stand in the middle and toss the stick gently into the higher goldenrod, aiming it so it will land cushioned by the weeds and maybe not break into two today.  After each fetch, I wait anxiously to see if Mway brings it back still in one piece, and I rejoin the cracked part to keep it from sagging too much.  Mway fetches it more times that I care to count; she treats the stick no more gingerly than she would any other time, growling at it and shaking it while it’s in her mouth, sometimes stepping on it as she’s spinning around and I’m trying to pick it up, and I’m amazed that, at least for today, the stick still stays together.

Bring Along the Clippers Again

August 7, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi tells me that the trumpet-like flowers are morning glories.  I believe her, even though I don’t find exactly what I see in Audubon; the photos the book shows of flowers in the morning glory family are close enough, and I’m content enough to call it a morning glory, although, except for the pinkish flowers, the entry for hedge bindweed better fits the bill: “leaves arrow-shaped or triangular” rather than “heart-shaped,” “a pest, twining among and engulfing desirable ornamentals,” so I suppose I should be equally content to call it bindweed.  The other flower Moi says is comfrey, which she planted herself there quite a few years ago.  Moi and I both work tonight; I have to go into town this morning; not quite sure when I’ll fit in a walk with Mway.  Back from my errand; I decide I might as well take Mway out now, at 11:27.  Moi is out painting the house; she feels compelled to distract me with every little detail: “I’ve just painted the trim on the two bottom windows.  If I wasn’t afraid to go up on the ladder….”  I bring along the clippers; it’s a cool, nonhumid day.

State of the Path:   I decide not to do any reclipping on the main path, just finish up on the side paths what I didn’t do the other week.  I snip an obtruding briar or goldenrod stem or two along the old orchard, but I don’t hunker down until I pass the maple tree and set to work on clipping the 20-foot swatch of goldenrod I hadn’t gotten to before.  End up clipping some dogbane and a little of the jewelweed too, though I try to keep most of the latter standing.  One thing I have to be mindful of is where I set my stick; walking back along the path, and clipping here and there whatever I might have missed, I think for a moment I lost the stick.  Fortunately, the “pro-quality” stick is big and conspicuous, and the weeds not as thick this year as they usually are, so I do find it where I left it.  Down at bug land, I stare again for a moment at the big “chokeberry” bush; then I spy two ripe blackberries, which I pick and eat to quench my thirst.  The path along the creek isn’t in dire need of clipping, so I head quickly to the side path along the skating pond.  Mind where I set my stick.  After the second honeysuckle bush, I find that the goldenrod is not too thick, so I just round the bend and gather up my stick.  Up beyond the ridge, I find another ripe blackberry to quench my thirst with.

State of the Creek:  The water at the tree stand is just a puddle beneath the big maple tree.  The pools at the black walnut tree and the big locusts have completely dried up.  See a frog leap into fresh mud.  The vinyl siding is nearly 4 feet away from what is now a pathetic puddle along the narrows.  The creek bed at the car tire is completely dry.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, Mway starts rolling in something, and I have to yell at her, “Don’t roll in that.”  To my surprise again, Mway starts fetching the stick more times than I care to count, and even forces me to play “Put it down” four or five times.  I stand in the middle of the clearing and toss the stick very lackadaisically, like I’m tossing sticks aside.  Looking around, I see that what Mway had been rolling in is a dead baby starling or something.  Back at the porch, Mway stands at the door without the stick in front of her.  “Where’d you put the stick?” I have to ask her.  While I’m looking for it around the porch, she runs past the swimming pool, as if she knows definitely that she dropped it way back there, but she comes running back empty mouthed.  I walk down the stoop, resigned to having to look for it all around the yard, Mway heading out again in front of me, but before she does I soon see the stick athwart her little wading pool.  As I bend down to pick it up, she suddenly spies it, snatches it up before I can reach it, and carries it back to the door.